


A Wildness Warily Awakened

by Etharei



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Alternate Universe - Zombies, M/M, Mythology - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-04
Updated: 2013-01-04
Packaged: 2017-11-23 14:58:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 64,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/623431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etharei/pseuds/Etharei
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek Hale and his Specialized Combat Agents Unit are assigned to B-CON Base, a research facility in the heart of the lone human settlement on planet Cali. Normally, such an isolated place would not warrant the presence of Specs - the Infection is raging across the known galaxy, after all, and zombies don’t kill themselves (unless there are no tastier alternatives at hand) - but Derek is on a private hunt for his sister. He soon discovers that the rest of his team have ties to the place as well.</p><p>It’s all just coincidence, of course. (No matter what Stiles bleats on about those.)</p><p>Also, zombies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue | Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [2012 Teen Wolf Big Bang](http://teenwolf-bb.livejournal.com/). Thanks to the mod for all the hard work they put into the challenge.
> 
> CHECK OUT THE ARTWORK IN FULL AT **[AWWA ART MASTERPOST](http://sphesphe.tumblr.com/post/39212858950/at-last-art-for-the-teen-wolf-big-bang-please)**. Much love and appreciation for my extremely talented artist, [Spheredhra](http://sphesphe.tumblr.com), who was incredibly supportive and encouraging and patient about my inability to post anything on time. She, on the other hand, finished all her fantastic art well in advance, so clearly she wins the internets.
> 
> Thanks as well to [xsilverdreamsx](http://archiveofourown.org/users/xsilverdreamsx) and everybody on twitter who cheered me on during NaNoWriMo (which was when I wrote most of this).

[ PROLOGUE ]

"Alpha, descent into atmosphere will be commencing in one hour."

Derek looked up. Frowned at the speaker mounted at the corner of the gym. 

He had no way of knowing who was watching the video feeds, but there was a fairly good chance that it was the ship's Communications officer. The young man - Greenbug, Greenberg, something - always stared at Derek with an unsettling degree of fascination whenever their paths crossed. 

It was hardly a new experience. There was a time when Derek would have tried to pass as just another passenger, keeping the distinctive Command-issued skinsuit and custom-built headset in his bags, but the infallible crew gossip network meant that the rumor _Spec agents on board_ had made a full round of the ship less than an hour after departure. And they always, always singled Derek out as a Spec. 

Laura had teased him that it was because he never smiled; apparently, he fitted popular culture's image of the dark, brooding, highly trained military operative gripped by a tortured past. 

She always had a darkly strange sense of humor.

_It's funny because it's true, little brother._

His hand slipped a little on the mat, causing him to pause in the middle of a push-up. He was, he realized, literally dripping with sweat; he'd long stopped counting the reps.

One bright side of travelling so far from the Central Cities was that Derek and his team were the only passengers, unless one counted the ridiculous number of shipping crates crammed into the cargo hold. Accordingly, there was nobody else in the gym, which was exactly how Derek liked it. 

He was toweling off when Scott came barreling in. "Derek! Jackson wants to know if we're going in full suit for the landing."

"On a Zone 5 base?" asked Derek dryly.

"The planet's a Level Two," Scott pointed out. 

"Only because most of it is now uninhabited and abandoned to the Deadeyes." Derek shook his head. "Tell the others: light gear only. You'll all thank me for it once you get a taste of the local weather." _In the middle of a forest_ sounded like a pleasant description, to people who didn't look up other data like _humidity_ and _average annual rainfall_.

"That's what Boyd said," admitted Scott, "But you know Jackson won't listen to anybody. He wants to show off to the locals."

Derek was not entirely opposed to presenting a particular image, especially if it got people to leave them alone to do their jobs. But they were going to land on the most secure area on the planet, which meant it was likely full of support crews who'd done rotations in far more hazardous zones, and suiting up like they expected to be attacked right on the landing pad would only make them appear paranoid and unprofessional. Derek was highly in favor of staying under the radar for this mission - though he wasn't going to elaborate on why, to Scott or anybody else.

Derek eyed Scott as the young man bounced on the balls of his feet. Jackson listened to Boyd, most of the time, but Derek was beginning to see why Boyd had sent Scott over to him. "You excited about this place?" Derek asked.

He'd once thought that Scott's boundless energy, frequently puzzled enthusiasm, and general puppy-like disposition were things the harsh hand of Command training and field experience would sand off over time. 

Derek had since begun to accept that those things might just be an inherent part of Scott being, well, _Scott_.

"Must be obvious, huh? If even you can tell." Scott grinned, friendly and disarming. 

It had taken them both a while, and the occasional intervention from the rest of the team, to get to this level of comfort with one another, where good-natured teasing could be just that. It still required conscious effort for Derek to not take advantage of an opening with a sniping comment. 

Case in point: Derek refrained from pointing out that Scott was the last person in the world who should be commenting on people's observation skills, and instead shrugged wordlessly.

"Oh, man. Okay," said Scott, "My best friend is stationed at Beacon, and I haven't seen him since the last time we were both on leave, so I'm kind of excited? His name's Stiles, he works in the Labs."

"Under Doctor Harris?" asked Derek. 

"Yeah." Scott's eyebrows hopped up.

"Why do you look surprised?" asked Derek, "I _do_ read the prep files."

"Just, you know." Scott made a vague gesture. "I know you weren't happy with Allison stepping in to do the support stuff."

"That's because she's not really a researcher, Scott," said Derek. "She's a damn sniper, maybe one of the best on active duty. And that's what she should be doing. It's not about... the Argents, or all the other stuff."

"Right." Scott blinked, and his expression visibly brightened. "Wait, you just admitted that she's a great sniper."

Derek rolled his eyes. "She knows she is, Scott."

"It means more, coming from you." Scott threw the comment out casually, like it was obvious, and plowed on before Derek could begin to parse the meaning behind it. "I'll keep an eye out for any possible techies at the base."

"You do that," said Derek. 

He didn't expect there to be any good candidates. The only people stationed at backwater places like Beacon must either not be qualified for the better facilities or unsuitable in some other way. Derek would only accept the best, because the lives of his team depended on everyone being able to do their job well. 

Still, it wouldn't hurt to keep an eye out, and it was always a good idea to give Scott a side-project. This mission wasn't going to be particularly exciting for the team.

Naturally, Derek would turn out to be totally wrong on that last point.

-++ CC ++-

"Hey, boss," Erica greeted Derek when he entered the gear room. She was going through the weapons rack, eyes gleaming with poorly-concealed anticipation and the relish of someone looking forward to committing acts of bloody violence.

"Erica." 

Derek went to his locker and pressed his palm against the scanning panel in the middle of the door. The panel shone yellow, indicating a scan in progress, then blinked green to confirm a match. The green faded except for a grid of thin lines, like a standard number pad but without the numbers printed into the boxes. Some security consoles showed the numbers; Derek preferred the ones that didn't. He tapped out his passcode. 

The locker door slid open. Derek's outer armor was in its usual bag; regulations said that Derek had to be able to put it on, plus weapons, in less than thirty seconds. The light gear, though, was hanging from the side. Body vest, arm guards, hip holsters. His blue-grey skinsuit, with its distinctive red lines and slight collar, provided little in the way of padding, but it was tougher to tear than chainmail. The whole thing was supposed to cover a specific percentage of body surface area, but being in the Specs came with certain perks.

Derek was buckling his boots on when Erica turned to him and asked, "Beam, bullet, or blade?"

The beam weapons were obnoxiously large; in light gear, they looked like overcompensation. Blades were Derek's personal preference. Not everyone was comfortable with getting close enough to the enemy to use them, though.

Of course, none of the team actually needed the weapons to be deadly. But those options were only to be used as a last resort. "Bullets."

"Figured. Come here, babies," cooed Erica, extracting her favorite pair of twin pistols from the handgun rack. 

Officially, all their weapons had to be standard-issue, and the racks were communal, every piece free to be used by anybody in the team. But Derek didn't know a Pack that didn't have its own specialized additions. And the pieces may not have names on them, but no one would dream of touching Boyd's shotgun, or Isaac's modified curve-beamer. The crossbow hadn't been seen since Allison joined the team. 

The one thing Derek _did_ insist on was regular practice with all the weapon types. There was no telling what might happen on the field, and who might be faced with picking up the weapon of a fallen comrade. 

Though he had a feeling Boyd would rather throw himself between the enemy and Jackson rather than try to work Jackson's temperamental beast of a machine-gun ever again. 

"Erica, pass me-" The shotgun was sailing through the air before Derek had even finished talking. He deftly caught it in one hand. "Thanks."

The shotgun that Derek considered _his_ looked like a standard Dicer-401. But it was heavier, the weight distributed differently, plus there was a hidden panel on the handgrip that could be slid out should Derek find himself in a tough spot or wanted to add a few surprises to his ammunition. He ran his hands over the sleek body, fond, before doing the usual check and load. Across the room, Erica was doing the same for her semi-automatic. Her pistols were already in their holsters, one on each hip.

"So," said Erica, "about Allison."

Derek groaned. "No."

"I'm not going to ask about whatever bad blood there is between the two of you," Erica assured him. "I just want to know - are you going to offer her the... treatment?"

"That's not really my call."

"It kind of is. I mean, yeah, Command makes the formal offer, but they only do it with the agent's Alpha's recommendation, right?"

Derek watches his hands intently, even though the motions of loading his gun are so ingrained that he can do this while asleep. "She's auxiliary, and her position is considered at-distance. She doesn't need the treatment." _And doesn't want it_ , his tone implied.

"It's just. She and Scott have been getting pretty close, that's all." 

Ah, that was what Erica was worried about. "Scott is not going to leave us," Derek said firmly. "You know how she feels about me. If she could have gotten him to transfer to another Pack, she would have. She's _staying_ for him."

Not that Derek understood anything about the complicated relationship between Scott and Chris Argent's only daughter. But Scott was staying in the Pack, and Allison wouldn't leave him, so that was that.

"I guess." Erica did not seem completely convinced, but the fluttering moths of worry in her general person-scent began to dissipate. 

Derek slid his shotgun into its usual place: strapped across his back. Considering the Allison matter closed, he asked, "Is everyone ready?" 

"Yeah, except for Isaac; he's been in the med bay since we dropped back into normal space. I think he's trying to get them to loan him one of the more advanced portable body scanners."

Derek hummed in approval. Isaac held his own in the field, but Derek suspected that the young man would be more suited to working the surgery tools in the medical bay than hurling incendiaries. At the same time, Isaac would never let go of that beamer until it was pried from his cold, dead fingers. 

Well. They'd all seen their share of doctors wielding guns. The Infected weren't picky about who they wanted to chomp on. It was a sad world where, in all likelihood, Isaac wouldn't even have to choose.

"Hustle him out," Derek ordered. "I want to get off this ship the second the exterior doors open."

Erica rolled her eyes. "Yes, Alpha."

-++ CC ++-

The fourth planet of system S-43-TI, named Cali, had one main landmass, which was covered by greenery in the north and rocky desert in the south. B-CON Base was located a little above the equator. Their first view of it - on the screen floating across one wall of the unloading bay - appeared abruptly after miles and miles of rolling canopy. It looked like a vaguely circular blob of white-grey buildings and a spider-web of streets, in the middle of which, like a sprawling steel spider, reigned the research facility that the rest of the settlement had been named after. 

The ship passed over the settlement and made a wide loop. They got a glimpse of a couple of Food Fields a few miles out of the protective wall that encircled the settlement. That was where all the fresh produce needed by the inhabitants were grown. Each Field had a wide, heavily guarded road leading to it. Small brown transports of various sizes rolled down the these roads like industrious beetles, some carrying workers and their necessary guard detail to the Fields, others ferrying the harvested crop back towards the settlement.

No sightings of Deadeyes, but they were notoriously shy of bright sunlight and airborne vehicles. In addition, the enormous trees of Cali's forests produced extensive, multi-layered canopies. 

It stirred something under Derek's skin. The planets in the heart of Centuria were all terraformed to near-artificiality. Only planets in the outer systems still possessed a mostly-native biosphere, and a lot of them had been abandoned over the last decade.

Cali hadn't escaped the exodus, either. Derek spotted a couple of small patches in the distance, the too-regular shapes of buildings; those had been towns, once, before the Deadeyes made it too dangerous to live in undefended communities surrounded by dense wood. 

B-CON was the only settlement left, now.

* * *

|| P A R T O N E ||

> Everyone has at least _heard_ of the Spec-CA, or Specialized Combat Agents; the remarkable part is how, in this day and age, what is known about the Specs is still more rumor than confirmed fact. General knowledge is that they are an elite branch of Command, Centuria's joint intelligence and military agency. [...] The units nicknamed NightSpecs specialize in direct combat with the Infected. Their numbers are not known, nor is the nature of the training they receive. Command has repeatedly declined to confirm or deny their existence, stating only that the Spec-CA branch is crucial to the fight against the Infected.  
>  \- commentary from 'The War That Is Not', by Matt Daehler

[ CHAPTER ONE ]

 

Humidity slapped them like a soggy fly-swatter the moment the outer airlock disengaged. Old habit kept Derek motionless, but he could hear the rest of the Pack shifting in discomfort. 

Out of the corner of one eye, he could see Scott twitching and absently touching his headpiece, clearly uncomfortable after not having worn it for the entire journey. Derek had made a habit, early on in his military career, of wearing his as much as possible; his head now felt odd whenever he took it off. Scott's headset was actually the most lightweight out of all of theirs, comprising mainly of what looked like wide sunglasses connected on one end to an earpiece. As a scout, his priority was speed and the ability to blend in; if he didn't wear any visible gear, the headpiece just made him look like a spoiled kid tourist. Derek's headpiece, on the other hand, verged on being a helmet, covering most of his face and head.

They waited while the doors gradually turned transparent, admitting the blinding sunlight of full noon. A vertical line appeared, grew wider, opened. Derek hefted his bag. Went through before the door finished opening, continued on down the ramp. He could hear the muffled steps of his team following closely behind. 

Boyd stood closest to Derek and to his right; the traditional placement of the second-in-command. Scott was to his left. Then Erica and Isaac, and finally Jackson anchoring the rear.

There was a woman in a generic moss green and black Planetary Guard uniform waiting for them at the bottom of the ramp. She didn't speak until they were all standing level with her on the concrete. "Unit H-Cali-4?"

"Yes," said Derek. "I'm Unit Leader Derek."

The Guard hesitated, eyeing his insignia. "Spec-CAG?"

Specialized Combat Agents - General type were the general-purpose agents of the Specs, the most numerous and, thus, most commonly seen. They were no less expertly trained than the other types. But their treatment protocol, in comparison to the far more drastic... _enhancements_ made to agents of other types, seemed to Derek more like taking a round of vitamins and bioboosters.

Not that he would ever say so to a Spec-CAG’s face.

Derek gave the standard Command answer, which was to keep his expression blank and stare at the Guard until she dropped her gaze.

"Welcome to B-CON Base, Alpha Derek," said the Guard, clearing her throat sheepishly. "We're somewhat understaffed at the moment, in all departments, so we appreciate your presence here." She nodded towards the large doors leading into the building. It had been opened all the way, to accommodate the steady stream of uniformed base crew unloading cargo from the ship. "I expect that the Overseer will confirm your assigned duties before tomorrow. A lab tech will take you to the barracks."

True to her word, a nervous-looking young man ambled up to them mere seconds after the Guard hurried off. "Hey, hi, Specs! Welcome. Um. If you could follow me, I'll show you where you'll be bunking."

Derek blinked at the lab tech. Something about him was... odd. But his face matched the picture on the pass hanging from his neck, and his lab coat was appropriately stained and smelled of various chemicals. On the other hand, he was too nervous and new for Derek to tell if he was being dishonest.

 _Really, suspicion less than five minutes after landing?_

Derek frowned, then nodded and gestured for the young man to lead the way.

The landing platform was at the top of what turned out to be the tallest building in the settlement- a grand eighteen levels, three of which were underground. 

The typical government research facility on most Central Cities averaged around seventy levels. 

"It's probably the oldest active lab around," said the lab tech, who was clearly taking it upon himself to be an impromptu tour guide, "I'm pretty sure this building has been here since the first colonization."

"Not exactly something to be proud about," snarked Jackson.

Instead of being intimidated like Derek expected - Jackson was more bark than bite, really, but his bark was pretty damn convincing - the lab tech breezily volleyed back, "Hey, hang around for a few hundred years and see how well _you_ hold up." The nervous scent faded as more and more words tumbled out. "Okay, I'm taking you guys through the all-access areas, but you should get your own key-tags before the day is out, and then I can show you all the little shortcuts around the place, just hit me up. This level is mainly waiting rooms and storage, because of the landing platform. The elevators are this way, emergency stairs over there..."

The barracks were in an adjacent, though connected, building. The lab tech talked the entire journey there - which Derek would normally find annoying, but the young man didn't require any responses to his babble, and quite possibly didn't seem to care if they listened to him or tuned him out. Plus, most of it was information about the base that wasn't covered by the briefings, and thus nominally useful. 

"You guys get a section all to yourselves," said the lab tech when they turned a corner and breezed through a set of doors, "three bunks to a room, communal showers, the laundry is on the ground floor-" The second the double-doors slid close behind them, he turned to Scott and punched him in the arm. "Dude, you couldn't have given me an arrival date? I've been hanging around the landing platform for weeks."

A flat _what the hell_ sat on Derek's tongue. Scott laughed and launched himself at the lab tech.

"Stiles!" exclaimed Scott happily. The two of them hugged and back-slapped each other with boyish gusto. "It's so good to see you, man, you don't even know."

"This _is_ a face to yearn for, glad you've discovered that," said Stiles, beaming. "Hey, you guys aren't on duty until tomorrow, right? Your Alpha's room is that one there at the end of the hall. Go stash your stuff, take your suppressants, do whatever you gotta-"

Stiles squeaked when Derek pushed him up against the wall. "Scott. Tell me you didn't."

Only a dozen people at Command HQ had direct access to the list of assignments being undertaken by active Spec teams. Only a handful were able to view details about the teams themselves. And of that, only two or three had the authorization to know which ones were Spec-CAL. 

Spec-CAL was the only Spec type to require the regular administration of suppressants.

"Derek!" Scott grabbed Derek's arm. "I didn't. You _know_ I didn't tell him."

"He didn't tell me," gasped Stiles. Derek pushed him higher, and his feet kicked ineffectually. "Didn't have to. My dad. Worked for Command. Retired."

Heartrate speeding up, but distinctly no lie-stutter. Derek lowered him without letting go of his lab coat and shirt. "If he's retired, he wouldn't have access to active missions." 

Or, at least, he shouldn't. But Derek was well familiar with how bureaucracy worked. Know the right people, attend the right events, and _secrets_ became just another currency. 

Stiles rolled his eyes. His heart was wild with fear, his person-scent thrumming with it, but the look he directed Derek was all affronted pride. "He never let that kind of information slip even when he was active. No, I just know what it means when the Command insignia has a double moon on it like yours does. Plus Scott got a Valour Star for Sky Six last summer. That spaceport city’s been a Zone One for the longest time, no regular Spec-CAG would have been sent there. And that time Scott fell off the grid for three months, exactly the time frame for when the Lakoan Crisis mysteriously resolved itself due to 'internal forces'."

"Stiles is really good at putting things together, okay," Scott said, "And it's not like he's going to tell anyone. Seriously, Derek, Derek, _let him go_."

The hint of a growl swung Derek's attention to Scott. Scott objected to a lot of Derek's decisions as a matter of course - it was part of the reason Derek kept him around, and doing so was part of the reason why the other Alphas thought Derek was crazy - and he was particularly protective of hapless citizens. But rarely did that steel wall come down - the unmistakable statement of _there is a line here, this is a cause I will_ fight _you over_. The only times Derek had seen it before had been to do with Scott's mother, which was understandable, and Allison.

Derek glared at Scott, then stepped back. Stiles slumped against the wall, coughing weakly.

"I'm all right, dude." Stiles waved Scott off when Scott rested a concerned hand on his shoulder. "Not the first time my mouth's gotten me into trouble."

"That's supposed to make me feel better?" sighed Scott. 

The two of them grinned broadly at each other, as if one hadn't been on the verge of having his windpipe crushed a minute earlier and the other hadn't subsequently declared his willingness to fight an Alpha to protect his friend. _Puppies_ , that's what they were - and while Derek could write encyclopedias on how unintended, stupid mistakes could still lead to innocent people being dead, he was getting the feeling that he had, maybe, overreacted a little bit.

"Everyone settle in," he barked. "Mess hall in one hour."

His team treated him to variations of the eye-roll, but willingly dispersed into the two opposite-facing rooms. Boyd, Jackson, and Erica went into one. Isaac and Scott went into the other. Stiles followed the latter and sat down on the free bed that Allison would, ostensibly, be taking when she joined them. Derek stood in the hallway for a minute, gaze alternating between the two doors. A sign on the wall explained that barrack doors would remain open during daylight hours unless someone inside set them to close. Stiles glanced his way a few times, looking uneasy and likely wondering why Derek was still standing there. It wasn't until the instinctive nervousness of being in a completely new place dimmed from the collective sense of Pack, until the familiar scent began seeping out of both rooms and filling the hallway, that Derek continued into the single room that had been given to his use. 

The door slid open at his approach and closed behind him. The privacy was superficial, as he could feel the team right outside and, technically, any one of them could come barging in whenever they felt like it. That was considered natural, among Pack. But years of lying low, with only his sister for company, had implanted a need for his own space, the occasional illusion of separation.

A single bed with white sheets, a tiny built-in closet, a desk, a mirror, a computer terminal. Standard government-issue room, nothing new. He opened the closet and saw that there were a couple of generic Centuria facility uniforms, each bearing the B-CON badge, stacked neatly in their individual transparent packets. The better to help them blend in, he supposed. The computer terminal looked a little different from what he was used to: there were no obvious touchpads, just the ports and transmitters sitting at the back edge of the desk. He knocked on the desk, testing, and was rewarded with the transmitter blinking green. The air above the desk shimmered. A holographic window appeared and floated up until it was level with his face. 

He prodded the Command symbol. A simple white box appeared. He typed in his passcode, appended with the mission passcode. 

No Spec team had a permanent designation. Spec-CAGs were the largest in number, and it was not uncommon for the other types to pretend to be Spec-CAGs in order to hide their nature and purpose. The very existence of Spec-CALs was not widely known outside of Command. In any case, it was easier to use the names given to them by the general public, such as _NightSpecs_ or _Deadmeeters_. The only official designations they were ever given were related to missions or the places where they were stationed at the time. 

For all that Command presented the Spec-CAs as being the same as all the other branches of the armed forces, Command was actually exceptionally accommodating towards the needs of each type; such as, in the case of the Spec-CALs, the traditional Pack structure. This meant, among many other things, that Command left the Alphas to order their Packs as they saw fit, and addressed each Pack via their Alpha.

No new messages since they left the ship. He could see that the rest of the Pack, except for Scott, were logged on as well, though Jackson left within a minute. Derek heard him stomping out of the room and up the hallway. Eager to explore the area and ingratiate himself with the locals, no doubt. 

Derek switched to the open channels and spent half an hour checking the general news feeds, mostly out of habit. He took a look through local news but there wasn't much of it - the only media presence in this system was ZeroTenTime, and even they mainly operated from their satellite station over on Cali's ice-covered neighbor planet. 

The mission briefings had captured the general idea: the only remaining living settlement on the planet was B-CON, written colloquially as "Beacon" and known locally as "Beacon Hills" due to the ring of abandoned towers, buildings, and a couple of actual hills that encircled the area and, incidentally, being the main reason the settlement had managed to keep from being overrun. The Centuria government had connected the ring into a continuous perimeter: the Barrier. 

Local sentiment was, reportedly, that life could be hard inside the Barrier, cramped as it was with the refugees from all the other towns and logging villages on the planet. But the only thing outside the Barrier was death. 

Derek was the last to arrive at the mess hall. Somehow, he was not at all surprised to see Lab Tech Stiles there as well. Scott usually preferred to sit in the center, but today he was at the end, in order to sit next to his friend without sticking a relative stranger in the middle of the group. 

_Seems like puppies_ can _learn._

Transitioning from a space environment to an on-planet one usually made their systems a little sensitive for a day, so the only food on the table was cold meats. Well, close approximations thereof; refugee settlements like Beacon often didn't have access to as much fresh meat as the population required. 

“No word yet, but we're here as general support, not a specific mission, so we get a waiting period just like all the other combatants,” said Derek, instead of asking Scott, Does your friend really have to be here? 

See, Derek was capable of learning, too. 

“Yes, sir,” said Isaac. It was only half-mocking. "It feels like a vacation already."

Nobody had questioned Derek's decision to come to Cali. But then, they probably weren't surprised, after the clusterfuck that was JupiterSea. It wasn't that Command blamed them, exactly, because it had been obvious from the moment they boarded the first ship in the Infection-infiltrated fleet that the mission was doomed to fail. But losing an entire fleet never looked good no matter the circumstances. Perhaps Derek had picked up social instincts at some point after all, because he could tell that Command wanted his people to lie low for a while. 

A Laikos team, not to mention a team with their track record, could have their pick of assignments; Derek had made a show of scrolling to the very bottom of the priority list, and selecting an entry, seemingly at random.

The fact that Derek had his own reason for choosing Cali was something he kept to himself.

-++ CC ++-

After the long transport journey, Derek wanted nothing more than to hide away in a quiet corner until his body acclimatized to the brand-new biosphere it had been shunted into. But training and past experience had him on his feet, wandering around the facility, forcing himself to learn human-useful things like the routes between the most frequently used areas, and incidentally also learning the things that could only be appreciated by the others in the Pack, such as which toilet facilities were the cleanest and how the noise level in the wing closest to the transport hangar could reach uncomfortable levels during the day. 

He circled the Labs, which looked like a building in its own right nestled inside the central facility structure, spanning the basement levels and a large portion of the levels up to the twelfth, though the main entrance was on Level 4. Derek opted not to go in; he didn't count himself as being particularly adept at identifying scents, but he didn't have to know what a scent meant to know when it was something bad. In any case, there was plenty to see through the multitude of indoor floor-to-ceiling windows next to the main entrance: bee-hives of activity around blocks of testing consoles, people in lab coats scurrying about, doors to isolation units glowing active-green in the far back, everybody brandishing at least one tablet computer.

He'd just finished the main building and was ambling across a small, well-trimmed lawn when his headset beeped, alerting him to a message. He pressed two fingers, index and ring, down on his palm to open it.

The message was from the Overseer’s office. He skimmed over the short, generic welcome message, and read the list of duties assigned to his Pack. Nothing unusual: regular patrol outings, escort and protection of groups upon request, the ubiquitous “missions suited to the specialized abilities and expertise of TEAM and/or MEMBERS thereof”.

He stopped at the nearest port and connected his headset. He could use his palm-pad to type out messages, but he always preferred a full keyboard if there was one nearby. Even when, like now, all he ended up writing was:

PATROL 0600 LOCAL TMRW - D

Between disconnecting from the port and continuing his stroll around the outside of the barracks, his headset beeped five times, each an acknowledgement from his Pack that they’d received and affirmed the message.

-++ CC ++-

Being in 'full suit' technically meant having every inch of skin covered except for the face, to minimize risk of contact with hazardous materials and general protection against the elements. Spec-CALs received exemptions here as well; Derek got away with wearing his usual skinsuit, which left his arms and neck bare. He conceded to wearing the body armor - in fact, his was heavier, due to several invisible modifications - because he was not willing to skimp out on his arsenal of weapons.

  
[[ click to see full size ]](http://25.media.tumblr.com/586d4133d972ee902a94d2351bd6396d/tumblr_mfuhn4pNaZ1rabfe9o1_1280.jpg)

The outer layer was all hard casing: over the chest, back, knees, shins, forearms. Here, as well, the Spec-CALs were set apart from other Specs. Their body armor was off-white and grey, easy to see, the material similar to metal in its smoothness but without the aggravating shine. There were Specs that were trained and outfitted for stealth - type Laikos was not one of them. 

Their primary purpose was to protect people from zombies. Derek knew that attempts had been made to design the Spec-CAL suit in such a way as to draw the zombies' attention towards it, causing the zombies to target the Specs rather than civilians, but as far as anyone had been able to tell, the only things zombies latched onto were heat and a working pulse, with no distinction made between targets. 

Zombies: the ultimate equalizers.

Underneath the armor, the dark middle layer provided some padding, additional protection, and also carried some of their electronic equipment. The controls for Derek's headset were strapped to the palms of his hands, embedded in what looked like black, fingerless gloves that slipped under his wrist-guards.

Here, too, the tendency towards modifications left all their suits looking distinctly different from one another's. All the others, except Erica and Derek, had full gloves; Isaac's suit was actually thicker than standard issue; Boyd hated the body armor and tried to get away with wearing as little of it as he could; Jackson's skinsuit could harden into scales, and likely cost more than all of the others' suits combined.

  
[[ click to see full size ]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/12cbe9f876cf8c4885089db10e3df034/tumblr_mfuhn4pNaZ1rabfe9o2_1280.jpg)

The vehicle provided for their patrol mission was a familiar TerrainBrain - the standard ground transport used by Planetary Guards for relatively stable on-planet environments. It had a box-like lower half and a sloping egg-shaped upper half, and wide wheels suited to urban roads and mild forest terrain. Derek slid inside via the hatch at the top, the rest of the team piling in after him.

The space inside was cramped. The pilot's chair was front and center, and then two chairs were situated behind it on either side, like the three points of a triangle. One chair would be central command and the other would be weapons control, depending on which side the highest ranking officer decided to sit. This time, Derek opted for the chair on the right. Boyd sat down in the pilot's chair. Erica had won the coin toss with Jackson and got to take the weapons on this outing; she took the remaining chair on Boyd's left.

Maintenance crew waved them out of the transport hangar and onto the main road. There were four main thoroughfares extending out from the facility in a straight line towards the Barrier. Two of them led directly to the larger Gates in the Barrier; all four connected to the Barrier Circuit, which was the circular road that followed the entire length of the Barrier on the inside. Derek brought up a map of Beacon on one of the windows floating in front of him; with the roads emphasized, it looked rather like a lopsided wheel with four spokes. The sprawl of buildings were packed between those four roads, and they did not have so much as streets as gaps between dense collections of living quarters.

Static crackled through the morning-quiet air. Then, a loud, "Hey guys! What's the undead forecast for today?"

Derek absolutely did not slam his head against the overhead panel in surprise. "What's Stiles doing on the comms?"

"Danny owed me a favor," Stiles answered breezily. "Seen any zombies yet?"

"For the love of-" Derek muttered, while somewhere behind him Jackson went, "What?"

"They're not... really zombies," protested Scott, with all the conviction of soggy tissue. 

"They are if everyone calls them zombies. Admit it, you call them that too," Stiles insisted. 

It was true. Scott grinned sheepishly at the rest of them.

"Sunny skies so far," Boyd said amusedly from the pilot’s chair, because Derek's Pack is full of comedians. "Got a blip hinting at some light showers over at the northeastern tower, though. They’re requesting our assistance." 

Boyd looked questioningly over his shoulder at Derek. Derek nodded. Boyd sent the map of the area and the route over to Derek's console, while Scott said, "H-Cali-4 to Base, we're answering the blip from Tower 6."

"Copy H-Cali-4, informing Tower 6 of your approach," answered Stiles, somehow managing to sound obnoxious and businesslike at the same time. "Sending you the activity briefs from the last seven days and the logged patrol routes."

It was clear that, cheekiness aside, Stiles knew what he was doing. "I thought he was a lab tech?" said Derek, looking questioningly at Scott.

"I worked in the Comm Tower for months before Harris agreed to let me into the Labs," explained Stiles. "Actually, I've been around here for so long that I've probably done every job there is."

Derek wanted to ask, _why are you still a lab tech, then?_ , and from the slight edge to Stiles' light tone, Stiles was probably expecting him to. But Derek did not particularly want to hear the young man's life story, and in any case was less than willing to discuss matters unrelated to the mission over a recorded comm line, even if Stiles didn't seem to care. "What should we be expecting at the Barrier?"

There was a pause. Stiles' voice, when it came back, sounded a touch warmer than before. "Most of the really heavy stuff goes down in the south, but the east and northeastern sections get a fair amount of _rainfall_ , too. There's a dried-up river that follows the Barrier for a bit, less than a mile from Tower 6. The riverbanks on our side are steep enough to discourage the loners, but sometimes a group collects there and gets determined enough to rush the Barrier.” There was a faint creaking sound, a minor alteration of breathing; Derek imagined Stiles stretching in his seat on the other end. “You know how the zombies seem to get smarter with numbers? Well, there's a hypothesis kicking around the Labs that when they're in a group, they also get better at distinguishing human from other zombies, and human from other animals. Like, a zombie on its own is just as likely to chomp on a fellow zombie as a human, right? But put maybe a dozen of them together and they'll go after any humans first, even if one of them goes down and becomes an easy meal."

 _The wolf is stronger in a pack,_ Derek couldn't help but think. He inwardly shuddered. 

Stiles coughs. "Not that, um, you heard it from me. It's just something one of the many, many projects that the distinguished experimental researchers here are looking into! Oh, you should see an abandoned warehouse soon. Well, half of one. Past that, there's about half a mile of rubble that you have to drive over. I'd highly recommend using your thrusters instead of your wheels. Floating over it isn't as manly as bouncing around in a metal container, I agree, but the fuel it'll use is actually cheaper than having to repair the frame and wheels after you've gone over that section several times. Seriously, the maintenance techs will thank you."

Derek rolled his eyes but nodded at Boyd. Boyd pulled up the controls for the thrusters.

Stiles' commentary followed them all the way to Tower 6. Derek tuned him out, directing his attention instead to the view of the settlement as they rolled past it. Linking his headset to the transport’s systems allowed him to look out through all twelve cameras installed at various points around the vehicle’s body.

There was only one actual window, and that was in front of the pilot’s chair. Fewer openings meant fewer opportunities for the Infected to get in. The rest of the transport's occupants, in addition to being squashed onto benches along the back of the transport, had to make do with real-time video feeds from the external cameras, which were projected into the central space behind the pilot's chair and between the two back seats. 

All the buildings in Beacon were fairly low to the ground, only a handful of levels at the most, which put them as pre-Infection construction. Derek remembered from the mission briefs that the current population was at least twice the number that the settlement was made to hold. And yet, despite the dearth of living space, a lot of the structures that they travelled past looked empty; people would rather live on top of each other, whole families cramming into rooms built for single occupants, than live in an old Infection site or too near the Barrier.

There were a couple of houses that looked like they’d been torched: the stone blackened, gaps where wood might once have been used for walls, doors and windows heavily barricaded. It didn’t take much imagination to guess what must have happened. Had the Deadeyes gotten through the Barrier? Or had the Infection found some other way inside?

On some planets, the Infection had merely been used as an excuse. There had been times when Derek had been tempted to leave people to the flesh-eating mobs. 

A disdainful rumble from that locked-away part of him carried the thought: at least hunger was a purer motivation, and teeth a cleaner way to go, than the things those who prided themselves in their humanity did to one another. 

Beacon didn’t seem to have that kind of atmosphere, though. The city smelled fearful, veiled by a faint cloud of desperation, but it was all directed outward. There was, reassuringly, a sense of the people being cared for, people caring for each other. The places where the population had turned against itself had reeked in a way that Derek would never be able to forget. Beacon, for all its dustiness and disrepair, seemed oddly peaceful.

The aforementioned rubble rose abruptly up the road ahead. From the height of the pile and visible variety of materials, Derek thought that a whole swathe of buildings must have been demolished to create such quantities. The whole mile of it followed the Barrier along one side; perhaps the locals wanted to create a clear gap between the Barrier and the first line of buildings? It would be easier to gun down any Infected that broke through the Barrier while they stumbled over the rubble than hunting them through buildings. Plus, the Barrier in this section looked partially made out of larger chunks of the same rubble, stacked up into a solid wall.

The rubble-Barrier eventually merged into a long grey building that looked like it had once been part of a larger complex, not unlike the research facility. At the far end stood Tower 6. It was hard to tell under the dirt and erosion, but Derek was fairly sure that the Tower used to be a clock tower of some kind. Most of the top had been replaced with what seemed like the bridge module of an old space-faring transport. 

A Planetary Guard stepped out to greet them once Boyd killed the transport's engines. Derek took great satisfaction in cutting off Stiles mid-babble.

"Unit Leader?" asked the Guard when Derek climbed out of the vehicle.

"Yes. Alpha Derek," Derek introduced himself. He saluted the Guard. "You reported that there's been some activity?"

"It started approximately an hour ago, Alpha," said the Guard, returning Derek’s salute. He gestured for the team to follow him. The Pack fell into their usual walking formation behind Derek. "The Guards on duty reported multiple sightings coming from the direction of the dry river. They haven't come up to the Barrier yet, or within range of our guns, but we can see movement amongst the trees." The Guard hesitated.

"What is it?" asked Derek.

"One of the watchers thought he saw something unusual," said the Guard. "The watch-officer on duty gave him and two others permission to go check it out."

"They haven't returned?" guessed Boyd.

"No. But it's been only ten minutes. They maintained radio contact right up until four minutes before you arrived."

"What was this unusual sighting?" asked Derek.

"The watcher wasn't very clear. But his watch-mate said that she'd glimpsed something, as well. They, uh, said that it looked like a large, wild animal."

Derek sensed the spike of anxiety from the rest of the Pack, though none of them gave any obvious, outward signs. "Scanners?"

"Too many heat signatures out there to be sure."

"All right." Derek nodded at his Pack. "If you'll get Base to authorize a gate-opening, we can go out and look for your missing people."

The Guard saluted. "Thank you."

'Gate' was the term used for any part of the Barrier that could be opened or shut. The closest one to Tower 6 was, in fact, a door, and looked to have been part of whatever larger structure that the Tower used to jut out of, of which only the Tower and the long grey wall on either side of the door remained. Tower and wall had been incorporated into the Barrier. On the Tower's side, what looked to be the remains of a dozen vehicles had been compacted into a barricade to connect this section to the next. The air around the wall shimmered from the energy shield encasing it. Beacon being what it was, Derek didn't expect the energy shield to extend very high up - ten feet, at the most. The richer cities at the heart of Centuria could afford a _dome_ of shielding. 

Derek waited at the gate with his team for a full minute before subtly switching to their private comm channel. "All right, get it off your chests."

Naturally, they all tried to talk at once.

"Do you think it's, you know-"

"This is like Indigo all over again-"

"We should go back for the beam weapons-"

"Or," Boyd's voice cut through the chatter, "it really might be a large animal."

Derek saw every head turning towards him, because he was apparently expected to know about the behavioral quirks of the local wildlife. A small voice at the back of his mind pointed out that maybe someone like Stiles would actually have this information, and what the hell, was there no escaping this kid? "Usually, wild animals _do_ stay away from the Infected. But maybe the ones on this planet don't. Boyd is right, it really could just be a large animal."

The comm switched back to the regular channel when the call from Tower 6 came through. "Base has given you authorization, H-Cali-4. Gate 6-East being opened."

The hum of the energy shield stopped. Heavy clanking noises came from the door as the locks disengaged. 

"Base to H-Cali-4, confirming authorization of Barrier exit," came Stiles' voice. "Window of re-entry is one hour, standard procedure on all operations. Priority is retrieval of missing units. Do you copy?"

"Copy that, Base," answered Scott. Then, "Dude, are you eating chips? I can hear you eating chips."

A muffled, "No. Definitely not."

"Stiles, if you don't stop distracting my team, I'm going to have to report you," barked Derek.

"We're not even out of the Barrier yet," protested Scott. He'd taken himself off comm before speaking, at least. "What's up with you? You're being more uptight than usual."

Admitting that Stiles seemed to be getting under Derek's skin would probably sound even more childish than it already did inside Derek's head. Admitting that Derek had been feeling a growing sense of... not quite unease, not yet, but definitely the niggling sense that there was something _off_ , ever since they stepped foot on this planet, did not advance itself as a particularly good idea either, especially right before their first excursion and with the Pack already anxious about this 'large animal' sighting.

"We're in unfamiliar territory," said Derek eventually. 

Scott muttered, "Great, that was helpful," under his breath. Derek ignored him. The door finished opening with a rather ominous _clang_. 

"Team is clear for exit," said Stiles.

"Copy, Base.” Derek nodded to his Pack, and cautiously led the way out into the unknown.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The Pack in LEGO](http://teenwolfandlegofusion.tumblr.com/post/80761065895/guess-that-fic-number-26-sterek) \- fantastic recreation of one of the scenes in the fic by teenwolfandlegofusion on tumblr. (alt link: [my reblog](http://etharei.tumblr.com/post/80773441934/teenwolfandlegofusion-guess-that-fic-number))


	2. Chapter 2

Once they were clear of the Barrier, Derek took a deep breath. Forest, old wood, morning dew, light rain in the distance. He'd been able to smell the forest even inside the Beacon facility, but it filled his lungs now, momentarily swamping his senses. Something in him seemed to _relax_ ; a tension he hadn't been aware of began uncoiling from his muscles. He had to glance at his uncovered fingers to check that the nails were still blunt, human-normal. 

"Wow," breathed Isaac.

Every planet had an unique biosphere. There was usually a bit of cross-contamination, especially after human colonization got well underway, but humanity had become a bit more sensitive about such things since the European expansion on Earthworld, and most planets were able to retain their indigenous life. 

The information sat dustily in Derek's brain. The rest of Derek was taking its own assessment of the forest, of the unfamiliar flowers and pollen and insects, of the spectacularly enormous _trees_. 

The Pack, out of instinct, clustered into a loose formation with its Alpha in the center. 

"What is it?" asked Stiles. "Do you guys see anything?"

Derek shook his head to clear the forest out from it. Forced his thoughts into order. "Negative. Tower 6, confirm visual of our position."

"H-Cali-4, we have you in our line of sight," said the Tower’s comm officer. "Transmitting the last known location of our missing unit."

"Got it," reported Boyd. "Distributing to the rest of the team."

Derek heard a quiet beep from his headset, indicating that he'd received the data packet. He curled the middle finger of his left hand and dragged it in a circle over his palm. A window opened up in the corner of his left eye's field of vision, showing a small map of the surrounding area, with a large 'X' indicating the missing unit's possible location.

"Scott," said Derek.

"On it." The eyepiece on Scott's headset changed color, indicating that they'd been switched to a different mode - probably to infrared, to detect heat signatures. Scott took off, disappearing into the trees.

"Ten silver says that he runs right into a cell of Deadeyes," said Jackson.

Nobody took him up on the bet, but Isaac sent a concerned look in the direction Scott had gone. 

Even one of the Spec-CAL could get into trouble if they went head-to-head against a large enough cell of Deadeyes. But they weren't out for a fight today, and any uninjured Spec could easily outrun zombies.

"Erica," prompted Derek.

"There's a bunch of them southeast of here," reported Erica. Derek, out of habit, glanced at the series of comm status lights on her headset. He saw, with approval, that the lights were at yellow-green-yellow, indicating that she was on the team's private, closed network, and not transmitting to Base or outside channels. She took several deep breaths, turning her head slowly. "There are smaller groups, maybe loners, scattered in all directions, but they don't seem to be going anywhere fast."

The missing unit's last known location was to the east, which meant that they might run into the group. Derek nodded. "Let's go. Switch to heat-sensitive." The eyepieces of his helmet flickered, then bathed the world in spectrums of red.

They didn't need it, of course. Derek could point out where the zombies were without having to move any closer. Boyd, who had a head for such things, could probably list exact coordinates. But a regular Command force - or any team, really - would have done it, and in the slim chance somebody investigated their equipment later on, there would be no questions about exactly _how_ Derek's team were able to locate the groups of ravenous zombies. 

"Knives only until I say otherwise," Derek ordered. "We don't want to draw attention until we've at least determined the status of the missing unit." The beam weapons would make noise in this damp, which other groups of zombies might decide to investigate.

They made their way through the trees at a slow jog, in single file with Derek at the lead.

“Okay guys," Stiles' voice cut in. "You're about to go into a dead zone. Of the telecommunications variety, not the messy, blood and guts one. You'll be cut off from the Beacon network."

"Are you kidding me?" grumbled Jackson.

"Yeah, it must blow your mind that this planet only has one satellite and not enough signal amplifiers to allow for a connection on every square inch of landmass," Stiles said tersely.

“This is why we need to take somebody on as support,” Scott pointed out, forever helpful.

Derek ignored him. “Copy that, Base. We'll report back when we come out again."

"Hey, if Scott does anything embarrassing, make sure to get it on video-" the sudden cutting off of Stiles' voice likely marked the start of the dead zone. Derek glanced at his network and communication status window, and confirmed that he was not getting any signals from Base. He was still linked to the rest of the Pack, though.

"I've got eyeballs on our missing units," Scott's voice came in, several minutes later. "Or, at least, I can see bodies in uniform and outdoor hazard suits at the bottom of this ditch."

There was a pause; Derek was sure he wasn't the only one who was surprised that Scott actually called in _before_ approaching the target. It was standard procedure, but Scott's tended to ignore that in favor of helping people. Derek eventually asked, "What's the situation?"

"There isn't one. Which, you know, is actually pretty weird. There's not a single zombie body around them. I'm not getting any signs of life. But here's the weird part: their guns are still strapped on. They came out here to investigate something suspicious, right? Even if there wasn't a Deadeye in sight, they should still have been walking with them out. Especially if someone had seen a large animal."

"Planetary Guards carry Thorax 2-50s for their main, right?" asked Boyd.

"Yup," answered Erica. "Though I wouldn't be surprised if they had their own homemade specials. But on a minor excursion like this - sure, they saw something suspicious, but you know how guard duty goes, I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't also going out of their minds and wanted something to do. They would have been carrying the standard arms."

"Scott," said Boyd, "Where are the ammo packs for the semi-autos?"

"Um." There was the sound of leaves rustling, and a rush of wind like a hard breeze. "Just did a circuit around the ditch. From what I can see, the ammo packs are still on their belts. Full load. Call it a hunch, but I don’t think any of them fired a single shot.”

"Scott," said Derek. He didn't know how to say, _what the hell is wrong_ or _what's got you so nervous_ without making Scott defensive. Allison could have done it, but she was a day and a half away from this sector. He settled for, "We'll be reaching your location in two minutes."

"Copy," Scott replied absently. Maybe he figured out what Derek was trying to ask, anyway, because he continued, "There's something _off_ about this. Like, I don't even know if it's a smell, exactly. I can see one guy with open wounds, but the area around them is too clean, you know? Zombies aren't exactly the neatest eaters. I don't know. You guys should be careful as you come in."

He was right. Derek let out a soft huff, irritated at himself for not thinking of it. "Team, disperse. Circle and close in on Scott's position."

The whole Pack melted into the trees around them. Derek quickened his pace, doing a wide curve past Scott's location and coming back towards him from the opposite direction. He caught glimpses of distant Deadeyes amongst the tree trunks. He was moving too fast for them to track; most of them didn't even twitch as he blew past. The more he grew used to the overall scent-presence of the forest, the easier it became to pick out where the Deadeyes were.

It was an odd thing: every place, every planet, every biosphere smelled different. But the zombies always smelled the same. Rancid, sickness, dulled decay, a pervasive miasma that pricked all of Derek's senses with a fundamental sense of wrongness.

-++ CC ++-

He could understand Scott's unease when the Pack met up again at the lip of the ditch. Derek frowned down at the depression in the ground. There were no heavy footprints leading down, which suggested that the Guards hadn’t walked themselves down there, but the only scent in the area was zombie, and Derek had never seen Deadeyes move their prey to a different area without having a good meal out of them first.

They didn't get long to consider the situation, however, because within minutes the wind brought the scent of approaching zombies. The rough, eerie moan-rattle they made always sounded as if it was coming from all directions. At least the Pack’s hearing was sharp enough to pick out the zombies’ actual movements through the woods; the sound would be far more frightening for humans, giving the illusion that the Deadeyes were closing in on all sides.

"Weapons out. Guns for preference.” 

If they’d had more space, Derek would have insisted on beam weapons, because the racket made by the projectile guns would surely draw even more Deadeyes. But the clearing around the ditch was small. If there was going to be a chance of being hit by friendly fire, better an easily-healed bullet hole than having to reopen a cauterized laser wound.

“Isolated area, no communication with the Base? If we weren’t up against zombies, I would call this is an ambush,” said Jackson.

“It can still be an ambush even if the enemy didn’t set it up as one deliberately,” said Boyd.

The Pack made a loose circle around the ditch, filling the clearing with the sound of guns being checked and knives leaving their sheaths.

-++ CC ++-

Truth was, they _weren’t_ zombies, exactly.

Derek had watched the old films, like every other good, morbidly curious citizen of this zombie-infested space empire. The zombies that mankind seemed to have long anticipated had very little resemblance to the creatures now stalking determinedly towards Derek and his team. 

Derek would never call these _undead_ , for one - if anything, their stubbornness for staying alive was part of the problem. Their pursuit of food, fresh meat for preference, seemed to override every other natural instinct, including the ones that screamed, _mortal injury_ or _your limbs have been chopped off, stop moving_. 

But he understood where the idea came from. The zombie making a beeline for him looked like a middle-aged woman, her light brown hair matted where it hadn’t been torn out entirely, chunks of her clothes missing along with chunks of her body. Under the distinctive grey pallor, her skin was leathery and lined from years of physical outdoor labor. Most likely from the Beacon settlement, then. She’d once been somebody’s daughter, might have been somebody’s sister, wife, mother. That person wasn’t there anymore - but how hard must it have been, in those first years of the Infection, for people to convince themselves that the body moving and bleeding and groaning in front of them no longer housed their loved one? 

He took the first zombie down with his shotgun. Pumped it and took out a second. Direct headshots took them down the fastest. The explosion of noise from the Pack only drew the rest of the cell of zombies to them faster. Derek's mind and body slipped into the familiar mode of fighting, fighting with his Pack around him. A bullet - small caliber, most likely from Erica's pistol - flew over his shoulder to take out a zombie that had used the body of one of its kind as a springboard and leapt for Derek. That was another tricky thing about zombies - they could go from sluggish shuffling to all-out speed attack at the turn of a thought.

Derek heard something large and groaning travelling fast through the air behind him, and ducked just as a nearly skeletal zombie went flying over his head, hitting a tree with an unmistakable crack. He glanced over to see Boyd, shotgun slung over his back, grabbing a zombie off Isaac and throwing it where Jackson could pepper it full of bullets. 

Scott and Erica stood close together, their lighter builds and smaller guns easily matching even the quickest, newest zombies. 

_Not bad work, Alpha._

Derek growled and spun sharply, knife in hand. The zombie that had been trying to creep up to him gave a last, defiant snap of its jaws before its head slid clean off and the body collapsed after it.

And then, there were no more zombies.

“We better head back to the Barrier before this wind brings more of them,” Derek said tersely.

Erica and Scott kept an eye out while the rest of them bundled the bodies into airtight body bags. They would get funerals, at least, or whatever ceremony their families preferred. These days, people were profoundly grateful to have that much, to get an assurance that the body of their loved one wasn’t still stumbling around in the wilds or munching on other people.

Isaac swore loudly.

“What is it?” demanded Derek, his hand drawing out one newly-cleaned knife without even thinking about it. He left Boyd to close up the bag that they’d been working on.

“This man’s alive. Just barely, but there’s a heartbeat.”

All of them froze. Derek stared at the body that Isaac was crouched next to. “Time?”

“Twenty-six minutes since last contact with Beacon, fifteen minutes since Scott found them,” answered Boyd.

“That’s about a ten minute gap. But even if they’d died right before Scott found them, that’s still twenty-six minutes where they were, as far as we all knew, dead,” said Derek.

A pause, then Scott said, “I’ve heard of cases where they got up again after three hours.”

“That’s, what, one in two million?” countered Isaac. “Ninety-eight percent of Infections lead to reanimation within the first five minutes, if the virus was able to reach the brain before death.”

“Why the hell are we talking about this?” groused Jackson. “Just shoot him in the head and be sure of it.”

There was an even longer pause. Finally, Scott voiced the idea that the rest of them did not dare to. “What if he's not infected?”

“Are you kidding me?” said Jackson. “Look at all that blood on him. How can he _not_ be infected?”

“Because he's still lying on the ground, barely alive, and not stumbling around trying to eat us?” Scott fired back.

“Enough,” Derek cut in, “We’re taking them all with us, one way or another. And we're not shooting him.” He directed the last at Jackson. “You know the rules. No human deaths. If there’s even the slightest suspicion that we killed a human in cold blood…” 

The entire Pack winced. 

Derek looked at Isaac. "Do you have a test kit on you?"

Isaac nodded. He pulled out a sealed box from the medkit strapped to his vest. Carefully opened it and extracted a thick, bright purple strip, approximately a foot long and an inch wide. Despite wearing full gloves, Isaac held it gingerly between his thumb and forefinger. Derek gamely ignored how his Spec-CAL team was trying to edge away from Isaac without being too obvious about it. Mainly because he was feeling the urge to do so himself; the nerves along his arms and on the back of his neck were tingling, and his nose was developing a subtle itch.

Bending down over the not-dead-yet Guard, Isaac located the emergency testing gap on the Guard's hazard suit – the mandatory fashion when venturing out into a hostile zone. Most suits had the slits around the wrist or arm, but Derek had also seen them located on the legs or the neck. The designers of the Beacon hazard suits turned out to favor testing on the wrist. Isaac unscrewed the tiny lock, which broke the underlying seal and allowed him to part the main sleeve from the attached glove. He deftly peeled off the adhesive cover of the test strip, looped it around the exposed wrist, and pressed down until it adhered to the skin.

Most of the test strip was medical tape - except for a narrow strip in the middle that contained chemicals which the zombies' physiologies objected very vehemently to.

"This is far less dramatic when they're not moving," observed Erica.

Normally, a person whose body was playing host to the Infection would react to the test strip as if they were being burned. It was the only time zombies ever exhibited pain. The newly Infected were especially sensitive, for some reason. Derek had witnessed several incidents where the person in question could not have made contact with the virus more than five minutes previously, and the test strip seared into their skin just as surely as it did the emaciated, blank-eyed, fully converted Infected.

Derek usually smelled the reaction immediately. Heat, like scorched meat - but without any fire, and meat that had gone bad. It was difficult to pick up anything now though, the woods around them too new and unfamiliar, the scent of death laying heavily on the spot they were standing on. The Guard's body didn't stir. 

Isaac peeled off the test strip after half a minute. Derek expected the usual sight - skin blistered and raw - and blinked when the Guard's wrist looked normal. From the scent of unease creeping around his Pack, they'd had the same expectations.

"It looks a bit... darker?" suggested Jackson.

"It could be due to low blood pressure and low circulation," Isaac posited. "The virus is in their system but hasn't been able to infiltrate the upper epidermal layers." Of course, this relied on the assumption that the test strip reacted to viral components in the skin, and not a different by-product released by the virus.

Regardless, it didn't really change anything about their mission. Derek voiced this conclusion, and pointed at Erica. “Put restraints on the live one, just in case.”

Erica nodded and dug out the repair tape from somewhere in her vest. The tape could be used to temporarily patch up small holes on spaceship hulls, so nobody questioned its ability to hold a zombie.

“Everybody else, check that you’ve completely healed up. Jackson, cover that rip in your suit before somebody wonders how you got away without a scratch.” Or, worse, tried to use it as grounds for requesting a test.

Each of them, save for Scott and Erica, hauled a body over their shoulder. Scott disappeared into the trees; he would run along the route and observe the general area, to make sure there weren't any surprises. Erica stayed with the group. Her nose was sharp enough to pick up approaching Deadeyes faster and more accurately than anybody else.

The comm signal returned on their way back towards the settlement. They knew this because one minute, there was only the sound of the wind and each other’s near-silent footsteps, and in the next minute, Stiles’ voice blared through their respective headsets.

"-on a HIIIIGH-WAY to HEELLLL-"

“Ow, Stiles, cut it out,” said Scott. “We’re on our way back.”

“Scott!” Stiles shouted in relief. The whole Pack winced. “Glad to hear your dulcet tones, man.”

“We found your missing unit,” Derek cut in.

Stiles quieted. After a pause, he asked, “Any survivors?” clearly expecting a ‘no’.

“One,” said Derek. “We’re five minutes away from the Barrier and we’re going to need two med-vans, one for a survivor who’s in critical condition and likely, but not conclusively, Infected.”

Derek expected to have to argue with Stiles about it, to be forced to recount the discovery. But Stiles just said, “Copy that,” and went off-comm for a minute before coming back with, “Med-vans are on their way. I’ll tell Tower 6 the situation so they’ll be ready for you.”

“Thank you,” Derek said automatically in his surprise. 

Sure enough, there was half a dozen Planetary Guards waiting just outside of the gate when the Pack reached the Barrier. The Guards’ faces were somber when Derek and his team placed the sealed hazard bags on the ground. The maybe-survivor was in a bag as well, just left unsealed, and Isaac handed him off to two of the Guards.

Following procedure, the Guards brought out a tank of what was widely called Decontamination Juice - a mixture of chemicals designed to sterilize any organic matter that might be clinging to skin or clothing or equipment - and liberally sprayed the team with it. Derek gritted his teeth and tried to breathe through his mouth. The smell hadn’t been too bad, when he’d been new to the field, mainly bleach and corroded metal, which the manufacturer had tried to improve by adding an artificial lemon scent, but he’d been active long enough that one whiff of it was nauseous, his body roiling from too much sense-memory of loss and pain and exhaustion.

It wasn't strictly necessary, because the virus needed to be transmitted via bite or direct blood-to-blood contact, and didn't last very long once it left the squishy warm incubator of the host body. But there was general paranoia about the live virus being carried in by the drying blood, so decon it was. 

He was so focused on _not_ thinking about the Decon Juice that it took Derek a few seconds to realize that the Planetary Guard Captain, the name FINSTOCK glinting on his bade, was saying something to him. And waving something in front of his face. Oh, it was a testing kit. 

“No, no tests,” he answered gruffly. 

It belatedly occurred to him that he could have been a little less abrupt about it, since heightened aggression was widely believed to be one of the early signs of infection. His next inhale had a lot less Decon Juice - which was good - and more tense anxiety from the Planetary Guards, some of whom had even taken out their weapons - which was less good.

And then Stiles’ voice was in his ears. “I think I’m - yes, patched into both your lines, hey, Captain Finstock, how’s that bum leg holding up? Listen, what Spec Unit Sourleader over there means is that he and his team are _NightSpecs_ , okay, which means they get a free pass on the Infection tests unless someone at clearance level Red-Five and above demands a blood test. It’s on their files.”

“I haven't - I've heard things, there's always talk, but who the fuck listens to those,” muttered Captain Finstock gruffly. He beckoned sharply to one of the other Guards, who handed him a tablet. Derek caught a glimpse of the Command logo.

“Unit Leader Derek and H-Cali-4, under authorization line Red-845,” said Derek, belatedly adding, “sir.”

“Nothing wrong with a healthy dose of suspicion," continued Stiles cheerfully. "To be fair, it’s not like we've ever seen Specs here before."

After a few minutes and a lot of staring at the screen, Captain Finstock gruffly admitted, “You’re right, there’s a list of designations here that aren’t required to provide a clean test. And - yes, they seem to match the people you’ve got on your team.” He cast a suspicious eye over them. “Still, I’m the one in charge of protecting the Barrier, and if any of you go zombie inside the settlement, the blame is all on me. Your team has been exposed, Unit Leader, and until I get a sufficient explanation for why I should just let you waltz in without proving that you are not bringing the Infection into the settlement, you’re staying out here.”

“Then I’d advise you to contact the Chief of Security, sir,” Derek said evenly, even though he itched to punch something. “She will explain the exemption.”

Derek hadn't really missed being in the Central Cities, but one advantage of proximity to the Centuria seat of government, as well as Command headquarters, was that most of the civil service and military personnel they'd encountered knew enough to leave Specs alone. Derek thought of the Guard who'd greeted them on the landing pad the previous day; she'd known to call him 'Alpha'. Perhaps she'd been stationed in one of the Cities in the past. The assignation was, technically, only correct for the leader of the Laikos-type agents, but all the Specs had adopted it, to further obfuscate the natures of each team.

Captain Finstock looked surprised by his suggestion, but nodded. “Base, connect me with the C-O-S.”

Derek did his best to look patient as the Captain moved off to one side. Of course, Derek and the rest of the Pack could still hear the Captain’s end of the conversation clearly, and some of the Chief’s replies.

“Ma’am, it’s about that Specs team we have on-planet.”

 _Spec-CA Unit H-Cali-4?_

“Yes, ma’am, they’ve just returned from an excursion outside, we had a handful of missing watchers.“

_Were they successful?_

“Yes, in a manner of speaking. We’ve just finished external decontamination, but they are now refusing the skin test.”

 _I see._ There was a pause. _Ah, their file has a Red-845._

“So I’ve been told, ma’am. They say it means they don't need to do the test.”

_What’s your security clearance, Captain?_

“Blue-90, ma’am.”

_Well, Captain, all I can tell you is that Red-845 means the members of this unit are not able to pass on the Infection regardless of the level or length of exposure._

“What-“ The word was loud enough that a number of the other Planetary Guards turned to look at their Captain. Captain Finstock glanced over his shoulder at them and shuffled further away. Though not, Derek was glad to see, beyond the range of the guns at the top of Tower 6, or close enough to the tree line for something lying in wait there to snatch him. A sensible man, and or at least experienced enough in dealing with the Deadeyes. 

The Captain continued in a hushed voice, “What does that mean, Chief?”

A quiet sigh could be heard over the comm line. _Look, Bobby, I don't like it either, but that’s the most I can tell you. You don’t have the clearance for any more._ I _don’t have the clearance to know much more than that. This authorization line comes from the very top. Unless you get the Overseer to personally request a blood-test, this team is not required to give one and you’re not allowed to restrict their movements for it._

“But how can they not spread the Infection? And even if they can’t, they can still do a lot of damage if they have a conversion inside the settlement.”

 _You’re not getting it - they_ can’t _be infected._

Captain Finstock froze, heartrate speeding up in shock. “Wha- How is this possible?”

_That information is beyond both our pay grades. Maybe it’s a genetic thing. But your orders are to let them go, Captain._

The blinking lights of two med-vans greeted them after they passed back through the Barrier gate. Derek waved his team back into their patrol vehicle; the Planetary Guards would take care of loading the survivor and then the rest of the bodies.

-++ CC ++-

"Oh, hey, the log says you guys just did the northeastern route? Your wheels look pretty clean," said the woman in an indoors hazard suit. The suit was bright blue, to indicate that she was maintenance crew.

"Stiles told us to use the thrusters," said Scott matter-of-factly, as if he expected everyone to know who Stiles was.

Which was, apparently, not far from the truth, if the way the woman grinned was any indication. Her voice was all bemused fondness when she said, "Not surprised. The last time he had to fix up a transport that had gone through the Rubble, he nearly got his foot crushed because he didn't know what severe metal fatigue looked like." She cocked her head at Scott. "Oh, you must be his best friend! He's been talking about you coming to visit since the beginning of the year. Didn't say you were with the spooks, though."

And Derek knew that this was where he should head off, get his team over to the showers and post-patrol briefing. Scott, if left alone, could chat for days, especially when faced with shiny new people he'd never met before. His interest was genuine, and it showed. Derek had shamelessly made use of it in the past; why bother with listening devices and trained talking-agents when they could just set Scott loose on the targets? 

Information was always useful, and the team needed to ingratiate themselves with the locals. 

Plus, they were talking about Stiles, and Stiles was somebody Scott spent a lot of time around, who already knew more about Derek's Pack than a civilian should. 

Who had also intervened to smooth over a potentially troublesome situation at the Gate.

Those were the only reasons for why Derek decided to look busy by meticulously inspecting his suit. Boyd, picking up his cue, found an excuse to clamber back into the transport.

"He worked down here, too?" Scott was asking the maintenance tech. "He said he's done all the jobs on base."

"Yup. Good guy. Complains non-stop, but he's there when you need him. Personally, most of us didn't think Harris would ever let him into the Labs proper. But if there's anybody who can wear down a mountain, it's Stiles."

"Why wouldn't Harris let him into the Labs?"

The question made the tech look around uneasily. "Nobody knows," she said. With two layers of suits and the noise from the rest of the transport hangar, Derek was too far away to hear her heartbeat, but Scott should be able to, and Scott didn't look as if he detected a lie. "Most people just assumed there was some kind of disagreement between them in the past. Harris has a bit of an ego, and Stiles isn't very good at keeping his opinions to himself."

"Oh, man, that wouldn't surprise me at all," chuckled Scott. "Stiles came here straight out of school, so I was kinda surprised to see him as a lab tech still. But, you know, what do I know about how things work in his field?"

"Yeah. I wasn't stationed here then, but he said he worked in the Labs for a short time, until Harris got transferred here. Whatever happened, well, happened, and from the sound of it, Stiles expected to be shipped out. For some reason, he got to stay at Beacon, but he was banned from the Labs for a year, and then Harris just kept finding reasons to keep him out. Until recently." She shook her head.

"Why didn't he just leave?" It took Derek a second to realize that the question had come from himself.

Scott and the tech looked at him in surprise, and said, in unison, "Lydia."

Well, that was very illuminating. Not.

Derek's face clearly communicated his thought, because Scott explained, "One of the head researchers, Doctor Lydia Martin? He's been in love with her since, like, his first day at university. She got assigned here the same time he did, and as long as she's here, he's not going anywhere. Even though he knows that they won't ever get together, because Lydia doesn't feel the same way about him."

"Bloody tragic," agreed the tech. "I mean, everybody knows about it. Stiles has told me that he's okay with them being friends, but we can all see that he's still pining after her something fierce. We keep telling him to just go somewhere else. He won't listen."

Derek racked his memory. "Doctor Martin, Head of Mathematics?"

"That's her. I don't think she knew he existed until they got here," Scott said. "He's said he tried to date other people. I guess none of them stuck. Stiles... kind of has a problem with letting stuff go."

"Oh, did he tell you about this one time he found out that Harris gets a secret package every month from his girlfriend-"

Derek tuned them out. The thought of Stiles pining after somebody for so long... well, Derek was hardly one to judge. He'd read Lydia Martin's file, seen her around the base a few times. She’d arrived a lab tech and worked her way up to being Department Head. Beautiful, but also no-nonsense, and gave the impression that she was perfectly capable of eviscerating anybody who stood in her way without so much as mussing her appearance. Derek could see the appeal. Stiles, restless and prone to flying off in multiple directions at once, would be balanced by a partner with a firm hand-

Why was Derek thinking about Stiles' personal affairs?

"Scott," he said, finally cutting into Scott's conversation, which now seemed to involve some kind of prank Stiles had pulled, "Debrief. Now."

Scott rolled his eyes, but followed Derek towards the doors after a friendly wave at the tech. The rest of the Pack dropped whatever they'd occupied themselves with and followed them.

"Tell Stiles that Sarah down at maintenance says 'hi'!" the tech called after Scott.

-++ CC ++-

Some internal clock woke Derek up one hour before dawn. He rubbed his eyes. He felt, strangely, like he'd spent the night doing exercise. Running around. A dream, he thought.

He listened carefully to the two sleep quarters outside, worked out that the rest of the Pack was asleep except for Isaac. Good. Technically, they were in a safe location, but too many missions in dangerous environs had ingrained a habit of at least one person in the Pack staying awake while the rest were asleep. Isaac would be able to tell soon that Derek was up, allowing him to take to his bed if he so chose.

A quick shower in his en suite bathroom. By the time Derek made his quiet way down the outside corridor, Isaac was in his bunk proper, heartbeat evening out. Isaac was a light sleeper; next to him, Scott's scent-presence was like a thick quilt, warm and cotton-like and firmly entrenched in sleep. 

The mess hall was mostly empty when Derek got there. He got coffee first, downing a cupful of hot, bitter liquid before refilling it again and adding sugar and milk to the second helping. Food was acquired by way of picking up a tray from a stack and filling up each of the five compartment on it with whatever was on offer from the dispensers. Derek didn't even bother looking at the menu with its list of ingredients and recommended nutritional combinations, simply stuck his tray under the first five dispensers and picked up a packet of cutlery.

A thick white paste turned out to be yogurt, with some kind of unidentifiable but passably sweet fruit mixed in; the chunky yellow mush in the compartment next to it tasted vaguely like scrambled eggs; the chunky brown gloop might, at one point, have contained meat in some kind of stew form; the pile of grains and flakes at least _looked_ like cereal was supposed to look; the dark, smoky slices of protein in the last compartment was unfamiliar but, ironically, seemed more edible for it, or at least less off-putting. Derek thought he saw one or two of the bare handful of people scattered amongst the benches glance disbelievingly at him as he practically inhaled his entire tray. 

He'd never been a very picky eater. Plus, there was the sure knowledge that nothing in the food could possibly kill him.

Breakfast over, he decided to head up to the Labs and see what had become of the survivor they had found the day before.

The Lab was surprisingly busy for the early hour. In fact, it looked as though there were as many people there as during regular working hours. 

He sidled up to the front desk. The lab tech manning it looked up from their computer terminal.

"Spec-CA Unit Leader Derek," he introduced himself. "My team and I retrieved a group of Planetary Guards from outside the Barrier yesterday, and one of them was still alive. I was wondering if I could get an update on that situation?"

The lab tech frowned and typed something into his terminal. "Looking that up for you now, sir," he said. After a moment, he added, "You know, you can make such requests through the 'Net, you'd probably get a faster response."

Derek shrugged. "I prefer to do it in person."

"The subject is being held in a hazard containment cell on Level 6," said the tech. "I can't give you much more information from here, but I've sent in a request - and it's just been approved - for one of the attending medicals to meet you upstairs and answer any questions you may have."

"Thank you," Derek said, surprised at the courtesy. The tech looked like he hadn’t slept for the last twelve hours. Derek would have been ready to stab people, in his place.

A middle-aged woman was waiting for him when he stepped out of the elevator. She shook his hand and introduced herself as "Doctor Khogar."

She led him down a series of corridors, the noise level dropping as they left the hectic main area of the Labs behind them. There were displays built into the walls on either side of them. Derek looked carefully at each case. All the displays were centered around the Infection.

The skull appeared malformed, unusual bumps appearing at the top of the foreheads and by the cheeks. Hair, the placard said, would sometimes grow on these affected areas, and sometimes hair fell out. The teeth became sharper, the canines pointed. The nails develop a distinctly claw-like appearance. Muscle growth noticeable on the arms, legs, and torso.

Enhanced hearing and sense of smell seemed geared towards tracking and hunting humans. Greater strength than the original body. Injuries did not heal. However, they also did not faze the zombies, whose mobility merely depended on the structural integrity of the necessary body parts, not their health nor injury.

"When the subject arrived," said Doctor Khogar, pulling Derek's attention away from the displays, "he had low blood pressure and a low heartrate, in addition to multiple open wounds, most of which are located on his abdomen and upper legs. Most of the wounds look like the type typically inflicted by the Infected. There is a bite mark high up on his neck." 

Derek frowned. “All the Guards still had their helmets on.”

“Exactly. Which means that the helmet had been removed prior to the bite, and then placed back on the subject.” She shook her head. "You've brought us a mystery, no doubt about it."

"What do you mean?" asked Derek.

"Let me show you."

The containment cell looked like a hybrid of a typical containment cell and a medical recovery room. The door and viewing windows were reinforced, there were two Planetary Guards stationed in the hallway outside, and Derek could see the transmitters that would encase the room in an energy shield should the need arise. 

Doctor Khogar went to a computer terminal on one of the viewing windows. She opened a couple of windows, bringing up the subject's personnel file and the tests that had been done on him so far. "We've stabilized his basics, but nothing much has changed since he was brought in."

Derek zeroed in on the one test result that he wanted to know about. "Infected."

"Yes." Doctor Khogar's expression was unreadable. "Your report said that your team medic observed a negative result on the skin test. We got a confused result on the blood test, but there is definitely virus present in the CSF extracted from his cerebral cavity. We've been monitoring his brain activity since we put him in that cell. There were a few blips early on, but nothing for the last ten hours. We've declared him medically brain-dead."

"And yet, he hasn't converted. Reanimated."

"Strictly speaking, he hasn't exhibited any physical activity. He could well have reanimated - the two main criteria for Infection are total cessation of brain activity and the presence of the virus in the cerebrospinal fluid, both of which he fulfills. He's just not moving." Doctor Khogar looked at Derek intently. "In your report, you said that you found him this way? That you did not do anything to the subject or to the other bodies?"

"Only picking them up and carrying them to the Barrier," said Derek. "We fought off approximately a dozen Infected before we could safely leave the area. That was in the report, too."

"Hmmm." Doctor Khogar stared at him a little longer. “Remarkable, how casually you can say something like that,” she said, as if speaking to herself. The staring eventually stopped, and she nodded at the windows floating in front of her. 

"Whatever it is you've brought back, it's certainly got all the researchers here running around like excited dawn-gulls. I suppose I should thank you, on the Department's behalf."

"Just doing my job, ma'am," said Derek awkwardly.

-++ CC ++-

The Overseer's office was hidden in the labyrinth that was the administration wing of the central building. Derek ended up asking a one of the dozens of people behind dozens of desks for directions. The young woman's enthusiasm in guiding him herself had Derek working hard not to scowl at her. He wasn't sure it would have worked; his lack of response seemed to encourage her further.

She finally left him alone in the tiny waiting room in front of a fairly formidable door, likely due to the glare from the older woman whose desk was next to said door. Personal assistant? Derek took a seat. He wasn't kept waiting for long, thankfully. He stood up again when the door opened.

"Alpha Derek."

"Madam Overseer."

Beacon's Overseer gestured for him to take the seat across her desk. She sat down herself, heavily; there were bags under her eyes and lines of fatigue all over her face. The desk between them was a behemoth of imitation wood and steel. 

"It has been many years since we've seen a Spec unit on this base. And the previous one had only been passing by."

"You requested the extra help."

"There are five hundred requests for Spec-CA assistance all over Centuria at any given time. Unlike the Central Cities, we don't actually expect to have the request answered." She leaned forward. "Why are you really here, Alpha?"

Derek met her gaze with silence.

After a long pause, she sighed. Tilted her head at him. "Hale. It's a fairly common name in some parts of the galaxy. But attached to a decorated Command officer in the Specialized Combat division - most of the people who'll make the connection are now retired, in one form or another, but there are still a couple of us kicking around here and there. Exiled to a backwater planet, for example." A look of sadness passed over her face. "Your grandfather was always very close-mouthed about his family. For good reason, it turns out. You don't look much like him, except for your eyes. Those are definitely his eyes. He was a good man, you know."

"He was," Derek said quietly.

The Overseer cleared her throat. "Well, it was just as hard to get information out of him. I trust that, whatever your reasons for coming here, you will still do your job to the best of your ability."

"Of course."

"Then I will be honest with you - we probably won't be here for much longer." She tapped on the desk, and the whole surface lit up, displaying a map of Beacon and the surrounding area. "Centuria and Command ignored this planet for years even before the Infection popped up. Most of our equipment and infrastructure are obsolete. Minimal maintenance. The Barrier is barely holding; if the Infected ever figure out how to pole-jump, they’ll be able to breach it. In the beginning, Centuria took advantage of the relative isolation of this planet to do the kind of research that's too risky to perform near bigger populations.” Or near outside agencies with an interest in keeping an eye on the Labs’ activities, her expression clearly stated. “But now those SpaceLabs they're building can be installed anywhere. Everybody seems to be moving to space, these days, if they have the money for it. I guess cramped living quarters and recycled everything appeals to some people. To be fair, the Ship-Cities are a lot easier to… manage, should the Infected ever get on board.”

Derek had to suppress a shudder. The main spread of the Infection had happened before Centauria started building Ship-Cities in earnest, but Derek knew first-hand what Command did to entire fleets of evacuating ships suspected of harbouring the Infection.

The Overseer was still watching him carefully.

“What would you like my team and I to do, Madam?” Derek asked.

She sighed. “For now, continue what you have been doing. Assist the Planetary Guard in patrolling the Barrier.” A window floated up from the table. “I read the reports from yesterday's mission. I must thank you, on behalf of the Guards and Centuria, for returning the dead as well as the subject currently sending all our researchers a-flutter. I’m giving you priority on excursions, and advising that all trips outside the Barrier be accompanied by at least one member of your team, if not the whole.”

“That would be best,” said Derek. 

“Then, if you have no other information for me, you are dismissed,” said the Overseer.

Derek stood. Saluted. 

He was almost to the door when she said, “You are distrustful of me. Why?”

He stopped. Etiquette from a previous life insisted that honesty should be rewarded with honesty. “Permission to speak freely?”

“Granted.”

Derek cleared his throat. Looked over his shoulder, though he did not directly meet her eyes. “You don’t look old enough to have served with my grandfather.”

“No, I suppose I don’t.” She sounded amused. “But, to be fair, your grandfather stopped looking his age after ten years in the service.”

Derek had always been able to smell the varying ages of members of his family, and Grandfather Hale had smelled _ancient_ compared to his aunts and uncles, his gaggle of cousins. But to humans, who only had eyes to work with, Derek supposed this was true. “My family had good genes,” he said.

“You mean they _have_ good genes; as far as I can tell, you’re still walking and breathing, young man.” The Overseer smiled. “Good genes - yes. You should remember that.”

He couldn’t read the expression on her face. “Have a good evening, Madam.”

“Have a good evening, Alpha,” said Overseer Morrell.


	3. Chapter 3

Each shot echoed sharply through the closed space of the practice range. The place was uncomfortably warm, a combination of local weather and the discharge bleeding over from the beam-weapon range next door. Derek's tank top stuck to him in places. At least the range was nearly empty at this hour; having to deal with the stench of dozens of strangers on top of his existing discomfort would have chased him out entirely.

The slide on his gun clicked back into its bulletless state. He pressed the button on the panel in front of him to signal that he was done. The realistic, humanoid bio-synthetic target filled in the holes made by the bullets. A scale holographic model of it flickered into the air in front of him; it showed where his bullets had entered the target, plus extra analytical information such as trajectory and depth of penetration.

He heard the door opening and closing, knew without looking that it was Boyd. 

"Derek," said Boyd, acknowledging him, before slipping into a neighboring stall. 

Derek hummed in response, busied himself with reloading his gun. 

Boyd started shooting. Derek took up his gun again a minute later. 

The two of them finished a whole round before Derek spoke.

"What do you think of this place?"

He could hear the click and shift of Boyd reloading. Efficient and unhurried. "The facility or the planet?"

"The planet."

"It's nice. Pretty average for a planet with a life-supporting environment. Don't think I've ever seen trees so big, though. I think we passed one that was the size of my mom's apartment building back home."

"City boy, huh?"

"Who isn't, in the Specs?"

Derek knew what he meant. The risks involved with the Spec-CA program meant that most of its recruits came from circumstances where they had more to gain in joining than they had to lose.

"Government sponsorship?" he asked quietly; the euphemism used for the substantial handouts given to the families of people who joined hazardous government or military programs.

"Big family, sir," said Boyd, in a clear _back off_ sort of voice.

Derek offered, "I came from a big family, too," because it was only fair. 

He wasn't sure if Boyd caught the past tense. Boyd was sharp, though, and Derek suspected he had, because he didn't say anything else. The two of them continued shooting, the faceless targets standing against the far well taking each shot without a sound.

-++ CC ++-

Derek stared at the MATCH FOUND message blinking on the screen in front of him. It took him a few minutes to understand what it meant. Even then, he carefully selected and opened the matched entry, half-convinced that it would be somebody else, that his sister wouldn't do the one thing that she'd made him promise not to.

The file opened. Her face stared out at him on the screen. Right below it read: LAURA HALE.

A heavy breath gushed out of him. 

_We were never very good at keeping promises._

She'd told him, over and over again until they were both sick of it: never use your real name. Leave it behind. Let it have burned to ashes with all the rest of our past. 

Command had helped, keeping their survival a secret and providing new identities and histories for them both. The Sheriff had been particularly accommodating, guilt and pain a stifling cloud that roiled 'round his scent-presence. Derek had no idea why; he knew whose fault it was, all of it, and it definitely wasn't the Sheriff's. 

Derek had gone through every alias that his sister had used, at least the ones he knew about. Nothing had come up. He'd finally typed in the name she'd been born with, on a whim, because he couldn't think of anything else.

The last time they'd talked - _fought_ , if he were honest with himself - had been because Derek had admitted to her that he'd enlisted in Command. Under his real name. 

Back then, he hadn't known about the Specialized Combat program. Hadn't known that Silver Ranges would happen, that he would become an Alpha in his own right. Hadn't known that Laura would go missing; Laura, who was the safe one, the smart one, who was meant to outlive him and have a life far away from the wreckage Derek had made of their old one. Derek had joined Command to keep her safe, because every Deadeye he killed was one less that could threaten the life she was building for herself, and it was a good reason to keep _Derek_ away from her too. A beta's primary instinct was to protect their Alpha; even now, as an Alpha himself, Derek couldn't let go of that imperative, present since his earliest memory.

"Why here?" he muttered. "Why _Cali_ , of all places?"

The floating holographic window gave no response. 

Laura had decided to come to Cali, a backwater planet that had already been mostly abandoned to the Infected, for a reason that involved leaving half a lifetime of hiding and taking up her real name. She was now missing, presumed dead. Derek clung to the hope that she was still alive, perhaps held captive somewhere; mostly for the sake of not having failed the last remaining member of his family, but also because the list of things that could kill one of their kind was worryingly short. 

_You've always had a habit of ignoring the things that you don't want to think about._

-++ CC ++-

Derek raised his eyebrows in surprise when he walked into the mess hall and saw Doctor Lydia Martin sitting at the table with the rest of the team. Erica, the only one looking in his direction, made an emphatic _I have no idea_ shrug. 

When Derek returned with his dinner tray, there had been a slight reshuffling of the seating order. Isaac, who always sat next to Scott, was now on the other side and opposite end from him, next to Boyd. Lydia was in Isaac's usual place on Scott's left, but the group had shifted so that she was at the end, their natural instinct towards a newcomer. Derek took a seat across from Scott, next to Jackson. 

"Is something wrong?" he asked Jackson. The newest member of the Pack appeared more tense than usual. His gaze kept drifting towards Lydia, on the other side of the table from him, and darting away whenever it seemed like she would look his way. It was strange, since the only thing greater than Jackson's confidence in his fighting abilities was Jackon's confidence in getting anybody he was interested in into his bed.

"No, we didn't see any large animals while we were out there," Scott was saying to Lydia. Ah, that was why she had joined them - to personally interrogate them about the previous day's mission in the hopes of getting something helpful about the unresponsive zombie. 

"How much can you tell from the readings off the Tower?" asked Boyd.

"Not much," said Stiles. "Only that it moved incredibly fast on four legs. The largest warm-blooded organism on this planet is the Trubell, and it's the size of a large rabbit. The only things bigger are reptiles, and most of them live in the mountains or the deserts, they won't go near humans. There are the birds, of course, but they’re pretty hard to mistake for anything else."

"Say we ignore the local wildlife," said Lydia. "What would this animal look like the most to you?"

Lydia whipped out a tablet and placed it in the middle of the table. A flat, low-resolution heat-scan image was projected from the device. They all stared thoughtfully at it.

"Rare bush under-bear," said Erica.

"Sky goat," said Scott.

"Mountain lion?" said Isaac.

"Cougar," volunteered Jackson.

"A cougar _is_ a mountain lion," snapped Doctor Martin, without even looking at Jackson.

Derek found himself glancing questioningly at Stiles. Stiles looked at Derek at the same time, and copied Erica's shrug from earlier.

"We need to get somebody to try to get a clearer image out of this," said Boyd, "and maybe check if that particular Tower does other kinds of scans at the same time."

"I'll see what I can do, but the Labs are treating this as a glitch in the equipment, or maybe one of the Infected lost the use of their legs and moved in such a fashion to compensate," said Lydia.

"What have I been saying about getting a tech?" said Scott.

"Hey, if you guys need a tech, Danny's the best one there is," Stiles said brightly. 

"What's he doing on Cali, then?" asked Boyd.

"His juvie records are sealed," said Stiles.

Erica snorted. "The fact that you know this means you tried to find it. And you found out what he did, anyway."

Stiles grinned, clearly pleased with himself. "It wasn't anything shocking. Just a bit of hacking, bugging a government website or two. Suspicion of identity fraud. It was all _down with the establishment_ stuff. He's been a model citizen ever since, probably because his parents paid the fines and made him promise to behave. And hey, I figured, who among us hasn't done a bit of hacking at one point or another, huh?"

"Is that a confession?" asked Derek with false sweetness. Scott snorted.

"I, of course, was a perfectly behaved kid," said Stiles. He looked, if anything, even happier to have gotten a response from Derek.

"That's not what the burn mark on Scott's ass says," said Erica.

Stiles spat out a bit of the juice he was in the process of drinking. It was disgusting, but the look on Jackson's face, in whose direction Stiles had been looking at the time, was more than worth it. "Dude! How did you - I thought you said your girlfriend's name is Allison, and she has dark hair, all your pathetic poems said so, why does - not that, you know, sleeping with other people is cool, too, or is this a Spec hazing thing? No, wait, that sounded - I meant the showing your ass, not the having sex bit, vis-à-vis hazing, though group orgies are cool if that's your thing-"

"Stiles, breathe," ordered Derek. To his surprise, and possibly also to Stiles', Stiles obeyed, mouth shutting with a snap. After a couple of deep breaths, the redness of his face subsided to a slightly less alarming level.

The rest of the table was too busy cracking up. "Relax," said Isaac, "We've all more or less seen each other in every condition imaginable. One of the hazards of the job."

"Right, yeah, of course," said Stiles, grinning again despite radiating embarrassment like a sun.

-++ CC ++-

Derek stared at the open medkit on his desk. 

He sighed heavily. Took one of the tubes from a neat row of them - three days left, he absently noted - and loaded it into the injector. The device blinked green. He pressed the blunt end to the skin of his inner wrist, squeezed the other end between thumb and forefinger. There was barely a hiss when the injector delivered a high-pressure shot without breaking his skin.

The familiar, much-hated taste oozed up the back of his throat. Derek coughed. Dropped the empty tube back into the medkit, returned the injector to its holding place, closed the kit, and stowed it away in the bag he always had ready in case a swift departure was needed.

The suppressant used to give him a headache for hours. Then he figured out that resting somewhere quiet for at least ten minutes after a shot let him avoid it. He tumbled into bed now, hoping that any members of his Pack who was thinking about visiting would pick up on Derek’s desire to be left alone.

-++ CC ++-

Derek had largely forgotten about the last member of the official team until Stiles, likely by abuse of the tag-tracking system in the facility, found him in the gym and sat down on the weights machine next to Derek's treadmill. He didn't even wait for Derek to acknowledge him - or blatantly ignore him, which Derek had been planning to do - before moaning, "Damn it, I should have taken it as a sign when the rest your team skedaddled. But I've been looking forward to finally meeting her, and Scott was being weirdly nervous like I might _disapprove_ or whatever, so I figured I'd stick around. And yeah, at first, the besotted gazing was cute-"

"What the holy hell are you talking about?" asked Derek.

"Allison!" Stiles cried out. "Who is, like, definitely way out of Scott's league, so good on him, and I totally understand, like, wanting to reaffirm your true love as often and in as many ways as possible, but was a little bit of _warning_ too much to ask? I go away to get some water for _two minutes_ , working under the clearly false assumption that, hey, it's the middle of the day, and usually people at least _lock_ the door if there are going to be naked body bits, and now I'm going to have to scrub my eyeballs out because, as much as I love Scott and will readily admit that he's not hard on the eyes, he's still like a brother to me, and I've just met Allison so I don't know if I can look her in the face for a few days."

Despite himself, a low chuckle escaped from Derek's mouth. 

Stiles' head whipped around. "Oh, hey, did I just make you laugh?" Derek glared at him, tried to settle his expression back to usual, but Stiles punched the air triumphantly. "I did. You can pretend I didn't, but I know I heard a laugh, mister."

Derek stopped the treadmill. Normally, he would do weights next, but Stiles was sitting on the machine. He could move to a different part of the gym, but that felt a little like running away, and Stiles would just follow him. 

For some reason, he felt strangely warm, even though his breathing was only slightly elevated from the cardio; he whipped off his shirt impatiently and dropped to the floor, starting his push-ups. 

He heard a sharp intake of breath from Stiles' direction, then a muttered, "oh, okay, yeah, definitely better than scrubbing my eyeballs." The honey-thick scent of arousal oozed over to Derek.

Derek rolled his eyes. He was more than aware of the kind of reactions people had to his body - had even taken advantage of it, if the situation required him to. But he usually found it annoying. He could already guess how things would pan out: Stiles would marinate in lust for a little while, eventually work up the courage to approach Derek, then Derek would turn him down firmly.

Might as well cut to the chase; Derek was a big believer in efficiency. "I'm not going to have sex with you," he told Stiles, shifting to one-arm push-ups.

Stiles looked startled. His scent flitted from surprise to annoyed-anger to disappointment to annoyed-indignation to something Derek couldn't quite identify, but sat in his nose, acceptance shaded with age-bitterness and cold-calm. "Hey, _presumptuous_ much?" squawked Stiles. "I wasn't planning on doing anything. But, fine, I guess it's good to know right off the bat. Better than pining after someone for ten years, right?" The bitterness spiked at the end.

Derek didn't trust himself to reply to that one. He changed arms, facing the other way.

"Well, great, nice to have bonded with you and all. I'll just..."

A flutter of moving air. It was easy to imagine Stiles making one of his vague, overly-exaggerated gestures. Stiles' scent-presence and heartbeat moved away.

For the rest of the day, Derek saw neither hide nor hair of Stiles. He didn't realize just how much the young man had been hanging around until he wasn't anymore. Scott, fortunately, was too busy being reunited with Allison to notice any changes. When they had lunch together, Jackson kept glancing around in confusion, as if he could tell there was something different but not pinpoint what it was.

Derek didn't _miss_ Stiles. The change in routine was just... unsettling.

-++ CC ++-

Allison, at least, was a known element, despite all the issues hanging unsaid between them. 

Seeing werewolf claws imbedded in one’s hunter mother’s shoulder could have that effect.

Their reunion consisted of her nodding at him with a somber, "Alpha."

He nodded back. "Argent."

-++ CC ++-

Derek stared up at the ceiling of his room. Sleep lurked around the corner, but he wasn't sure if he wanted to sleep. Out in space, the ships were never truly silent; beyond the metal walls and stale air, there was the unmistakable sense of emptiness, a vastness to intimidate the blood-bound beast that wanted for sky and soil and the sun off a bright moon-face. He could sleep then - if not peacefully, then adequately, the flashes of Old Life easily brushed aside upon waking.

Since he’d arrived on Beacon, however...

The forest surrounded the settlement on all sides. Pushing in, slow, patient and _old_. 

Grandfather Hale used to have dreams. 

(Not that people believed in such things anymore, Grandmother would say. But her words had felt - not like a lie, precisely, but as one telling children a story, where the truth smelled of many things. Whatever Grandmother believed, she'd taken aside every one of her children, and every one of her children's children, and told them to listen to Grandfather when he told them of his dreams.)

Derek had only been given a dream-telling once.

(That was what it had felt like. Grandfather's claw on the back of Derek's hand, on a twitch away from breaking skin. Grandfather had smelled of himself - old books, coffee, trampled grass, polished wood, evening winds - until one, sharp instant, when he smelled of something else entirely. And Derek knew that he was being _given_ something. Calling it a dream was just to make it simpler.)

_men meddle and the Sun punishes; find the moon at the beacon, cursebreaker_

-++ CC ++-

After a week of quieter meals and an increasingly bewildered Scott, Stiles began showing up again. At first, he did his best to position himself as far away from Derek as possible. Derek could guess why - arousal continued to buzz, nervous, around Stiles whenever he became aware of Derek. Derek was, unexpectedly, more concerned about how the rest of the Pack would react to it, but either they couldn't identify the scent, or it happened more often than even Derek was aware of and they were taking it as a matter of course. In any case, Derek was not required to give anybody another talk on being discreet about their enhanced senses, and Stiles gradually relaxed when he saw that Derek was not treating him any differently. 

It was odd, though - normally arousal dissipated after a while, especially when there was nothing encouraging it. But, if anything, the scent settled permanently into Stiles' overall scent-presence, until Derek couldn't smell Stiles without that sticky honey buttering. Sometimes he would pick up somebody else's arousal scent and, for a brief second, assume that Stiles was nearby. 

Well, Stiles had purportedly been chasing after Lydia Martin for ten years. Scott did say he had a problem with letting things go. Derek had no reservations about taking him aside for another talk, if he was discomfited by the situation. 

But he was Scott's friend, and he wasn't pushing himself on Derek, so everything was fine. Derek was willing to ignore it. For Scott.

-++ CC ++-

There was a small balcony on the tenth level of the central building that housed a small, well-kept garden. There was never anybody there - the constant threat of voracious carnivores that can scale buildings and leap over gaps of twenty feet had made people extremely nervous about open areas, for some reason - so Derek often lounged on the manicured grass when he needed breathing space from the crush of humanity inside the facility.

Of course, that didn't mean humanity couldn't come looking for him. Derek sighed when he picked up Stiles' heartbeat emerging from the elevator.

_Face it, you're more annoyed that you don't find him as annoying as you think you should._

"You treat Scott differently from the others," Stiles said, settling down next to Derek, because he had obviously never learned to leave things well alone. "I mean, the dude's practically my bro, you don't need to sell me on his good points, but half the time you guys irritate each other just for the sake of it."

The instinctive Pack-business-no-outsiders-allowed clashed with Stiles' open, curious face, and made more complicated by the way that, probably from spending so much time around them all, Stiles actually _smelled_ like Pack now. Derek grappled with it for a minute, eventually saying, "Scott would make a good Alpha."

"Oh? Wait, what does that mean?"

"It means that he has the- I don't know how to describe it," Derek grumbled, brushing a hand through his hair. "It's not a matter of strength, and not just about personality. This, this thing, means someone is made to be an Alpha. Like when you hear somebody make a speech and know he's good leader. And he has it. He doesn't have the experience, yet, but in a few years, he should be able to take a Pack of his own."

"Oh. That sounds cool."

-++ CC ++-

Laura hated cramped spaces. Normally, Derek didn't really notice such things, but for some reason he felt strangely aware of the limited space inside his quarters. As if he could feel the building pressing down, trapping the air, vibrating with all the activity going on at all hours of the day.

Derek pushed away his medkit and rested flat on his back on the bed. His thoughts felt muddled, bumping along randomly all over the inside of his head. Laura would have shaken her head and told him that he'd brought this on himself.

Trying not to think about Laura or the past distracted Derek enough that he didn't realize he was in a different place entirely until a stray flower snagged on his fingers, which were splayed out over his chest, and he thought: hang on, where did this flower come from, and why is there a breeze?

Open sky. Full moon. Uneven rock under his back instead of a mattress and sheets. He could see the dark shadow of a mountain looming in the distance. From the position of the stars in the sky, and his memory of the geography of the land north of Beacon, he ascertained that he was still on Cali.

Derek hadn't had a dream as clear as this in years. Not since-

He thought he heard a howl in the distance. But there were no wolves in Cali. It was one of the first things he'd checked on, then double-checked after the Coma Zombie incident. No known canine-like animals, either; not that he could ever mistake a different animal's call for a wolf’s. 

Well, since he was already here. He sprang to his feet, not at all surprised to find himself shifted.

He ran for a short while, caught by how real the grass felt under his feet, the wind in his face. 

That was when Derek looked _up_.

There was a full moon, yes, clear and majestic. But the normal stars weren't there. In their place were points of light depicting a wolf leaping over a grassy plain, followed closely by a humanoid figure. He'd last seen this image on a slab of rock in his father's study.

 _The Wolf and The Hunter in their eternal chase_ , memory rippled with his father's voice. _Symbols of the Old Ways, which bear many meanings._

The Wolf moved, running with a smooth and easy grace; the stars that made up the grass and clouds turned to comets, sweeping past. Close behind, the Hunter ran as well, the distance between them never growing more or less.

_This one, many take as a warning of how things used to be. How things are and always will be, they argue._

There was a bow in the Hunter's hand, what might be a quiver of arrows on its back, but the Hunter never fired a shot. The chase was the **point**.

_Our family see it as a reminder that even the greatest enemies do not always need to be so. That we are not locked into the roles that life has given us._

Grandmother Hale had been a hunter, born into a family of hunters. That little bit of history had been revealed to them when Derek was seven, and Derek had been too young to feel more than a slight surprise, easily accepting the new information. What he remembered more vividly was Laura's _shock_ , the burst of citrus and new metal, the faint smokiness of instinctive fear. Derek had looked uncertainly between his older sister and his father and his grandmother. He'd known there were things there that he didn't understand, _Alpha_ things, and had half-hoped to be dismissed. Grandmother Hale had laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, though.

_It is considered a sign of a great leader when the Wolf binds with the Hunter in such a way. Destined to be Alpha._

After Laura and their father had left, Laura calmer and distinctly thoughtful, Derek was reminded of Grandmother Hale's hand on his shoulder when she gently drew him close. He'd gone willingly, wondering at the haze of saltwater-chalk-winter hovering gently over her, sadness tempered with a great many other things.

 _Of course, the Hunter has a different take on the story,_ echoed her voice. _That version is not nearly as nice. Between the two of us, I've always preferred the Wolf's._

-++ CC ++-

"There's only a _fence_ ," said Jackson, glaring as if what he was seeing would change if he kept his angry face on it for long enough. 

Erica rolled her eyes. "This settlement can't afford reinforced walls and energy barriers for the Food Fields, Jackson."

" _The Dead want corpses, not crops_ ," Boyd quoted in the sing-song voice of the extremely well-known advisory video. "They'll only come here if there are people here. No people, they hit the fence and wander off. And even if there's a break in the fence and they get through, a few trampled crops are manageable."

"So what do we do if they show up when the harvesters _are_ here?" asked Jackson.

"Protocol says immediate evac," said Derek. "The harvesters know to drop anything they're holding and high-tail it to the transports. We leave the wagons here, run back to the city. Come back and collect the wagons when the area is clear again." 

Derek and his team joined the squad of Planetary Guards who scattered themselves around the perimeter, keeping an eye on all the areas of the fence they could see. A few of the Guards were casting dubious looks towards the team, likely wondering what they could be discussing when the day's agenda was guarding several acres' worth of vegetables.

It was a newbie's sort of assignment, on worlds that had Guards to spare. Which was, ironically, why a miasma of vague puzzlement was sitting over Derek's team - even Spec-CAGs got more exciting tasks than this. 

Today's Food Field featured mainly radishes and tomatoes; the scent of both heavily permeated the humid air, making Derek feel like he was standing in a pot of soup. The harvesters, once given the green light by the guards, rolled out the appropriate equipment from the shed with practiced efficiency. Within minutes, teams of low-humming Pickers were proceeding sedately down the rows of vegetables, neatly extracting the crops from the soil, followed closely by a harvester with at least one tablet in hand.

Deadeyes began showing up after about two hours. The Planetary Guards hefted their weapons, watching the areas of fence where the zombies were pushing repeatedly at the chain fencing. Heart-rates elevated, but Derek adjusted his patrol route to drift closer and the Guards' fear tasted old, familiar. 

More Deadeyes appeared from the forest. The fence held. 

"They're not looking at the Infected," Allison said quietly. Derek didn't jump, because he'd heard her approaching, but he'd assumed she'd walk past him. "The harvesters, and some of the Guards. They don't look directly at the Infected."

She was right. "If they are from Cali, originally," said Derek, "Some of those people out there might be family, friends."

"Bodies," said Allison. "They're not people anymore."

"You'd know all about who qualifies as _people_ , wouldn't you?" said Derek. He turned to continue his circuit around the Field, in the opposite direction from Allison's.

"Derek." Allison's tone was chiding. As if he was being a petulant child.

"We both know why you're here, why you decided to stay with the Pack," Derek growled. 

Her eyes were firm, determined to stand her ground. "I know what you're capable of."

"So do I." _Mostly._ "Question is, do you know what _you_ are capable of?" Derek stalked off without waiting for her answer.

-++ CC ++-

It was Erica who caught the scent first. "Derek," she said under her breath.

Behind them, the half dozen scientists and lab assistants continued their work, chatting quietly with each other while they meticulously picked samples of leaves and bark and soil, or waved around instruments connected to their tablets. Derek didn't know any of them, and from the bland-voiced officer who acknowledged their regular check-ins with Base, it seemed as though Stiles was actually in the Labs today. 

Derek felt the pack growing more alert, either smelling the same thing or hearing Erica's warning. They were playing guard dogs for this mission, and thus were arranged in a loose ring around the scientific team.

"You guys know the drill," Derek muttered. Scott, after a silent exchange of nods with Allison, melted into the trees. None of the scientists noticed.

A long, slow breath, letting the mixture of scents glide over his tongue and sit in his lungs, and Derek was able to pick out the familiar sourness that Erica had. Coming from southeast, on the wind; their ground transports, as well as Beacon, were southwest. They were upwind; there was a chance that the zombies would be distracted by the scents of the settlement and wander towards the Barrier instead. Derek wasn't willing to bank on it, though.

He shifted to the side of their protective circle that faced southeast, nodding for Erica and Isaac, on his other side, to do the same. Allison moved to where Scott had been, which also put her at the furthest point from the estimated direction of attack. Boyd and Jackson closed in, but remained in their relative position in the circle; it was not unheard of for one or two loners to follow the sounds of fighting and snatch someone while everybody else had been looking the other way.

"Alpha, I've got eyes on a group of Infected, and they're heading towards you," Scott's voice came over the comm line. "Sending my position now."

The data packet from Scott, which Derek's headset translated into a red dot on the map of the area, told him that the cell of Deadeyes were probably ten minutes away. Scott hadn't said whether or not the zombies had caught the humans' scent, which meant that he wasn't sure.

"Doctor Warren," Derek said, turning to address the lead scientist on the excursion. "My scout has spotted a group of Infected coming this way from the southeast. If we remain here, they will reach us in approximately ten minutes. If we start heading towards the transports, they will reach us in less than that."

Warren's face was mostly obscured by the grey helmet, and his body was encased in a matching grey hazard suit plus protective outer armor, but Derek could see the way he stiffened in alarm, could hear the sudden change in heartbeat. All the other civilians had stopped their work. 

"If we head for the transports," said Warren slowly, meaning the area they'd parked the transports in, "Will we make it?"

"There's a possibility," Derek admitted, "but it would require your entire team to run the entire way there. I advise against it."

"We can make it," said one of the other scientists. Her voice was high and breathless from distress, and her heartrate was unmistakably elevated. Derek suspected that she was reeking of fear inside the sealed hazard suit. "Better than just sitting here waiting for them to come eat us."

Boyd cut in before Derek could come up with a suitably biting retort. "I'm sorry, Doctor Jerle, but what Alpha Derek means is that running only draws the Infected's attention. Their first instinct will be to _chase_ us, and over short distances, the Infected move faster. It would be harder for us to protect you if we have to run and fight an enemy at the rear simultaneously. Staying here and eliminating them first is, strategically, the better option."

There was a pause. One of the lab assistants asked, tremulously, "You're sure we can't just escape in a different direction?"

"That would only give us a few extra minutes, tops, and it would put the transports further away," Boyd explained patiently. "There's also a chance we'll run into another group of them."

"He's right." Scott reappeared suddenly between Erica and Jackson. All the lab assistants jumped, one of them letting out a particularly vehement curse. "Sorry," said Scott, looking sheepish and apologetic. "I know that your instincts are telling you to make a run for it. But we - my team and I - have been fighting the Infected for years. If we run, yeah, most of you will get away. Probably. But some of you will get hurt. That's one big difference they have with the zombies from the old movies - hunting down fleeing prey is what the Infected are great at.”

"You've probably seen those videos where they tell you that your best course of action is to scatter. And I guess that works as a last resort, when no one has weapons and everybody around you is a stranger, anyway. But all of you here know each other. You've been working together for months, if not years. And you've got us. Are you really willing to look at the person next to you now and say, _hey, I know you've got family waiting for you somewhere, maybe I've even talked to them, but it's every human for themself out here?_ " 

Scott shook his head. "Let me tell you a little secret - my team and I, we've been to a lot of places that have been run over by the Infected. But the places where we've found the most survivors are always the ones where people have banded together. They don't even have proper weapons, sometimes. I've seen a group of teenagers take out a dozen Infected using pit traps and rails cut into spikes. The scariest thing I've seen is when people let their fear turn them into the kind that thinks, _better you than me_. If you let us stand and fight, we'll make sure _all_ of you get out of this unharmed."

 _He's good._

Doctor Warren and Doctor Jerle exchanged looks. The decision was, technically, on Doctor Warren. But it was Doctor Jerle who asked, "Can you promise that you'll do your best to protect us?" She directed it not to Scott, but to Derek. 

Everybody turned to look at Derek, expectant.

I will do my job, was what he wanted to say, but what came out was, "I promise that all of you will return home safely today."

It was a ridiculous promise - yes, the scientists were civilians, but they knew the statistics, the likelihood of _everybody_ escaping unscathed from an encounter with the Infected out in the woods. And why the good doctor wanted - and trusted - such a promise from Derek, instead of Scott or Isaac, Derek had no idea.

Doctor Jerle simply breathed out. Nodded.

Derek held her eyes for another second, then said, "All right, we need to move to that tree stump over there. If you have equipment that will take more than thirty seconds to pack up, leave it where it is. The Infected won't care about it."

The wind changed slightly. He took a deep breath. Five minutes away.

The tree stump was almost level with Scott's head, and stood in the center of a small, clear space. Once the civilians were clustered around it, Derek said, "Here are the rules: keep your back to the tree stump until I tell you otherwise, don't make any sudden movements, and always keep an eye out for loner Infected who may be coming from a different direction. If you see an Infected, even if you're not sure, just shout out where you think you saw it. If somebody gets snatched, try to grab them and don't let go. Some of our weapons have flares, so if we shout at you to close your eyes, _close your damn eyes_. Any questions?"

One of the assistants raised his hand. "Yes?" Derek said impatiently.

"What if we brought weapons?"

Derek raised an eyebrow. "Are you trained and authorized to use it?" Most civilians who had the proper clearance to be out in the open on a Level Two planet - which all the scientists at Beacon had to be - were required to have basic weapons training, so that they didn't shoot their foot off if there was an emergency situation and they had to take up arms. But most of them didn't go so far as to actually _carry_ weapons. 

"Y-yes. I've got a license."

"Then use it, if you're confident enough to." He fixed the assistant with a steely glare. "Just remember - my team is what's standing between you and the Infected. We've got more than enough on our plate without having to worry about friendly fire as well. So don't shoot unless you're sure, and you've got a clean shot."

"Yes, sir," said the assistant.

-++ CC ++-

The Deadeyes must have caught their scent a while ago, because by the time they came upon the group, at least half of them were running, the hunger for fresh meat having had time to build them up into a frenzy. Their groaning seemed to rattle the high canopy. Derek gestured at Erica even as he rushed forward to meet the zombie in the lead. The zombies could not be allowed to get near the scientist. A zombie rushing in with enough momentum could still get within clawing distance of the civilians, so Derek and his team had to push the zombies back a little.

Derek grunted when he collided into the zombie. It was wearing the body of a middle-aged woman, and the impact made it hiss something unintelligible. Ribs cracked under Derek's fist. The stink of the Infected nearly made Derek gag. He preferred to fight at least an arm's length away, with his knives, but he didn't dare risk loosening his hold on the zombie. He punched it again in the abdomen, but instead of pulling back right after, he slipped his claws out, digging it into the zombie's leathery flesh. He used his hold on it to push it back, get it as far away from the civilians as the trees would allow. When he judged it safe, he pulled his hand back and swiped it, almost casually, across the zombie's throat, each finger solidly extended. Blood cracked out, dull and old, oozing down to the zombie's chest. 

The zombie gasped silently, trying to suck in its next breath - but not, Derek distantly note, visibly reacting with any pain or comprehension of a wound, not clutching its neck like a human would. Derek easily slid one of his knives up the bottom of its jaw. The zombie shuddered violently, then went limp. Derek pulled the knife out and let the body drop to the ground. 

He'd barely taken a breath when he spotted Erica shooting at two zombies at once. She got one, but the second turned its head at the last minute, causing her bullet to slice across the side of its head but not actually penetrate. Which, predictably, caused the zombie to half-stumble, half-jog towards her, whatever basic functions remaining in its altered brain identifying her as a threat that should be eaten as soon as possible.

Derek was close enough to throw his already-bloody knife. The zombie fell to the ground with the hilt sticking out of the back of its head.

"Thanks," said Erica. Derek nodded at her.

A quick scan of the miniature battlefield told Derek that his Pack had done well in keeping the zombies away from the civilians. The lab assistant with the gun was holding it correctly, at least, though Derek didn't remember hearing the gun go off yet. As long as the kid didn't hit one of them. 

Over the closed team comm network, Allison sporadically called out names when she needed people to get out of the way. Derek heard a terse, "Derek," right after he stabbed a zombie in the chest. He instinctively reared back. The zombie screeched, and then there was the sound of a small explosion, followed by the smell of spoiled meat cooking. The zombie fell over, one crossbow bolt sticking out of the back of its neck and another low on its back.

Isaac was trying to jam his knife into one zombie, but the zombie had a tight grip on his wrists and was trying to bite his face at the same time. Derek reached over his shoulder and pulled out his semi-automatic. 

He shouted, "Isaac, back!" 

Isaac couldn't actually get free of the zombie completely, but he stepped back and kicked the zombie in the stomach. The zombie staggered back, still stubbornly clinging to Isaac's wrists; Derek fired off three shots, all of them hitting the zombie in the head.

Isaac grimaced, though likely more from the relatively small percentage of the zombie's head that remained attached to the body than the blood spattered over his face. He absently wiped the former with the back of his hand. 

Derek took a quick look over at the civilians. All of them were staring at him and Isaac, and one of them was muttering something in an unfamiliar language, voice full of horror. 

Oh, right. Derek had taken a shot that no regular soldier or guard would have. Even though everybody knew that it took a bite or a clawing, direct blood-to-blood transmission, to turn somebody into a zombie, the ingrained fear of coming into any sort of contact with contaminated fluids made people hesitate at the thought of splattering blood all over somebody's face. Which, ironically, probably made more people zombie chow.

Derek never knew what to do in such situations. Should he reassure them that Isaac would be fine? They must have heard plenty of rumors about NightSpecs. Stiles took particular joy in telling him the more ridiculous ones, like they were zombies who'd been somehow converted back to humans. But it was one thing to know the gossip, Derek supposed, and another thing to live under constant fear of infection and then see somebody be so blatantly exposed to it.

In the end, Derek decided not to say anything; they would see soon enough that Isaac wouldn't go into conversion. It was better for them to keep their distance, anyway; just because Derek and the Pack couldn't be converted, didn't make the blood they'd gotten on their bodies was any less hazardous. 

Most of the zombies were dead or well on their way to it. There was a circular area around the civilians that was relatively clear, but beyond that, the ground was littered with zombies and Infected blood. A couple of stragglers stumbled in and were immediately set upon by Boyd, Scott, and Allison. Derek walked a circle around the area, carefully sniffing out any possible Deadeyes lingering nearby.

That's when he saw it.

At first, he'd simply assumed it was a loner wandering close in the hopes of getting an easy meal. The whole area smelled of Deadeyes and blood and Deadeye blood. He was aware of Erica disappearing into the trees on the other side of the clearing, ostensibly to search out any lurking Infected, but more likely to close the gaps in her skinsuit and let her body heal all visible open wounds.

Derek happened to be looking at a particularly dense patch of trees. It took him a few seconds to realize that those were a pair of _eyes_ looking right back at him.

It wasn't exactly the eyes that were so shocking. It was the fact that they were _glowing red_.

Derek's vision blurred, then sharpened, a faint red sheen indicating that his own eyes were now glowing red. The bright sunlight hurt, despite the shade afforded by the trees. But his shifted, low-light vision allowed him to see the more of the owner of the glowing eyes.

"Derek? What the hell, Derek, cut it out." Someone punched him on the shoulder. "Your hands, dude, _your hands_."

The glowing eyes were gone. Derek blinked, coming back to himself. He firmly reversed his shift, vision returning to human-normal and claws morphing back into fingers. 

"What was that?" asked Scott. "I haven't seen you lose control since, you know, Lako."

"You remember that large animal sighting that Tower 6 had, on our first outing patrol?" said Derek.

"Yeah? I still get questioned about how we found the bodies and Mr. Coma Zombie. Stiles insists that the biggest quadruped in this region is that rabbit thing we had for dinner the other night."

"Well," Derek glanced over his shoulder at the researchers, all of whom were either crouched on the ground or heartily throwing up in the bushes, "I think I just saw what those watchers saw, and it was definitely bigger than a rabbit."

They made their way back to the transports with the Pack encircling the science team but keeping a safe distance between them. Derek didn't miss the way the scientists kept their eyes on Isaac, as if expecting him to convert at any moment. The transports were equipped with a couple of tanks of Decon Juice; Doctor Warren and Doctor Jerle hosed the team down before the scientists got into their transport and the pack got into theirs.

At Gate 1, the gate they'd gone out from, both the scientists and the team were thoroughly sprayed with Decon Juice again. All of them were finishing signing back in when Doctor Jerle reappeared. 

Derek, to his utter surprise, found his hand being sincerely shaken. "Thank you for keeping your promise," said Doctor Jerle.

I don't always, sat on the tip of Derek's tongue. He swallowed it and managed a bland, "Glad to do my job, Doctor."

-++ CC ++-

The idea sat in Derek’s head for several days, hovering over his thoughts like an obnoxiously gleeful cloud. Not unlike the person the idea was centered around. Derek willingly blamed Scott for how Stiles seemed to be _everywhere_ , but even when Scott wasn’t around, Stiles had a tendency to materialize exactly where Derek happened to be. Derek would wonder about stalking, if Stiles didn't smell genuinely startled to see him most of the time.

Case in point: Derek got into the elevator that would take him down to the library, and one floor down, Stiles walked in as well, heading for the same destination. Stiles blinked, his scent-presence shot brightly with surprise.

"Alpha."

"Stiles."

Stiles nodded awkwardly at Derek before turning to stare at the level numbers ticking down.

Normally, Stiles would be chattering away a mile a minute at this point, but today, Stiles seemed distinctly... subdued. Derek frowned, and after a moment he realized that Stiles was wearing a fairly clean lab coat, as well as protective glasses, a tablet clutched to his chest. So, Stiles was working his actual job at the moment. Derek had heard plenty of complaints about how seldom Doctor Harris allowed it.

Beacon’s library would probably qualify as a storage closet in one of the Central Cities. There was only a small collection of actual books, all crammed into ancient preservation blocks along the walls, and only a dozen computer ports spaced out along four long tables. It was clearly expected that visitors would bring their own gear, but there was a locked case full of clunky, obsolete headpieces and tablets that looked like they could well be made out of rock. A disoriented person who wandered down here by accident might be forgiven for assuming it to be a museum of some kind.

Stiles snuck a glance at Derek out of the corner of one eye before scurrying to the table furthest from the elevator doors. Derek took careful stock of the small room and decided on the far end of one of the middle tables, where he would be able to see the doors and have a wall at his back. 

Derek detached the spare transmitter on his headset and connected it to the correct port. He could hear Stiles shifting and muttering under his breath. Derek normally had no problem ignoring other people, and he'd gotten particularly good at tuning chatter out whenever he could not immediately escape his double act with Scott. But somehow Stiles’ _silence_ needled at Derek, intruding into his thoughts even as the screen flickered into life in front of him and he looked through his inbox for any new messages. 

Stiles had been on this planet for years. Stiles knew every inch of the base, and probably every inch of the settlement. Derek opened up a folder. Stared at the array of thumbnails. He’d read each and every file at least a dozen times, could recite a few of them from memory.

Laura Hale, born 3541 A.P., current location unknown.

He could remember how tightly she’d gripped his hand when the Sheriff intercepted them on the way to the rendezvous with the Hale fleet. She seldom forgot her strength, but she had squeezed his fingers enough to crush a normal human’s; in cold temperatures, he thought he could still feel the cracks. He liked that; their kind healed so well, he liked the idea that she’d stamped her grief into his very bones.

“Stiles?” he finally said.

“Yes!” squeaked Stiles. There was a crashing sound. Derek turned and saw Stiles partially unseated, clinging to the edge of the desk while his chair banged against the wall. “I mean. Um. What?”

Derek sighed. “I’m looking for somebody, and you’re going to help me.”


	4. Chapter 4

Beacon's central market was often the busiest area in the settlement. It had probably been some kind of outdoor plaza before the Infection crammed the planet's entire surviving human population into approximately the area of Earthworld First New York. Now, makeshift stalls had been arranged haphazardly over the worn stone tiling. 

One section primarily sold fresh produce from Beacon's meager number of Food Fields. This close to noon, those stalls were already mostly empty. Next to them were the dried and reconstituted food items, shipped in from outside the system. Those were mostly gone as well. There were stalls that sold clothing, household wares, tech, vehicle parts. The settlements on Cali had been small, rural places that had survived mainly due to the export of local fruits and timber, both of which were now difficult to harvest in large numbers. Derek suspected that Beacon itself would not have survived this long if it weren't for the research facility and Centuria wanting to protect its investment.

Stiles wove through the market crowd like a determined eel. Derek followed him sedately, mostly by nose; it was remarkably easy, for some reason, to pick out Stiles' scent above the cauldron of other scents. The sun was warm, the air humid. Not entirely pleasant, but Derek felt relaxed. The facility was a lot like many Central Cities - sterile, rigidly structured, everything isolated and closed in. A world built of walls meant to lock out anything that could be dangerous. 

Not that Derek didn't see the appeal. But it was too easy, there, to believe that threats would always remain on the outside. To forget that there were other people who did not have such protections. 

Besides, closed spaces made him edgy after an extended period of time. He'd take a pack of Deadeyes under the open sky any day. 

Stiles' scent-presence changed direction. Derek followed him down one of the narrower lanes, where the stalls were just over a shoulder-width apart. He sped up a little, and saw Stiles slipping behind a stall to speak to an old man. The man's wife stood up to embrace Stiles, patting him fondly on the cheek.

Derek had just reached the stall when a small shape barreled into him from the opposite direction on the lane. He instinctively froze and looked down. Large brown eyes blinked up at him, belonging to a dirt-stained face that was gnawing industriously on a candy stick.

"Oh, don't bother the big, scary guy, Rahni," said Stiles. 

Rahni did not ease up on the death-grip he had on Derek's leg. If anything, he tilted his head curiously and peered up at Derek, as if trying to see what Stiles meant by 'big' and 'scary'. Derek gave Stiles a look, then bent down and picked up the child. Rahni let go of his leg then, only to hold onto Derek's shoulder, nodding as if this had been what he'd wanted Derek to do all along.

It turned out that Rahni was the elderly couple's grandson. The grandmother, named Anga, did not seem at all perturbed to have a stranger carrying her grandchild. Her husband, Dane, gave Derek a dubious look, but evidently took Anga's lack of concern as sufficient character assessment.

Which meant that Derek was left carrying a small child, who kicked him irritably when he tried to put him down. Stiles stared at him.

It wasn't bad, actually, once Derek stopped worrying that somebody was going to start screaming that he was abducting their kid. It gave him something to do while Stiles and the elderly couple launched into what sounded like several weeks' worth of gossip. Anga and Dane seemed to know a surprising number of people from the facility - perhaps the researchers there were not as shut-in as Derek had initially assumed. It was clear that they were fairly familiar with Stiles, as they asked him about Scott and Doctor Harris and working in the Labs. The most entertaining part was watching Stiles flush red when they teased him about Doctor Martin.

Derek glanced over the couple's stall display. This area was not particularly busy, probably due to the tiny lane, and most of the people there were browsing rather than buying. Anga and Dane sold what looked to be children's toys, beautifully handmade from the Great Millennial trees that Cali was known for. 

He heard his own name spoken, and tuned back in time to realize that Stiles was now telling the couple about Derek's Pack. He learned, to his private surprise, that Stiles had been spending more time with the Pack than he'd thought. He even knew about Boyd's assortment of siblings, asking for Dane's recommendation for suitable gifts from their wares, and then pressing an extra 'consultation fee' into their hands when he purchased the items.

There was a faint dampness on the collar of his skinsuit. Derek glanced down and realized that Rahni had _fallen asleep on him_. He adjusted his hold so that the child was resting more comfortably on his shoulder. Looking back up, he saw Stiles' wide eyes on him, though Stiles didn't falter in his easy conversation with Dane. The back of the stall was merely a cloth curtain, and Anga was leaning half out of it, talking to somebody else in a low voice.

Impatience itched down Derek's spine, but he was careful not to move too much. 

Then Anga sat back down next to Dane and said, "Now, my love, stop monopolizing Stiles and let him ask us whatever it is that's been itching something fierce in him and his friend."

Stiles looked sheepish. "I did want to see you two as well, you know."

"I know, dear. You're a good boy; the world would be a better place if more young people took the time to listen to us oldbodies. But the two of you came here for a reason." She looked directly at Derek. "There is no shame in asking for help, when help is needed."

Derek felt a flush rising up his face, though he wasn't entirely sure why.

"We're looking for a woman," said Stiles, apparently realizing that Derek wasn't going to say anything. Stiles pulled out a palm-size image emitter from his pocket and clicked it on. An image of Laura floated in the air above it.

Dane and Anga examined the picture with somber expressions. Anga glanced between the picture and Derek. She said nothing, and her expression hardly changed, and Derek did not look much like Laura at all; yet, Derek had no doubt that she could guess the connection. Strangely, Derek was confident that she wouldn’t tell Stiles.

Anga nodded at Dane, and Dane took the emitter from Stiles.

"We'll let you know if we find out anything," Anga said to Stiles.

Stiles nodded, thanking her, and stood to leave, adjusting the bag he was holding. Rahni began stirring, so Derek felt comfortable in handing the child over to Dane. 

"Moonchased," Anga said quietly.

Derek whipped around. Stiles was already outside, waiting in the narrow lane, chatting with people in a different stall. Anga had spoken barely above a whisper. Not even Dane looked up from where he was tucking Rahni into a small cot at back.

"How do you-?"

She tilted her head to one side, almost bird-like, and drifted closer to him. "I am not... _related_ to your family, cub, but yours is not the only heritage that is so old." For a moment, a breath, an alien scent brushed over his nose, electric and peculiar. "Some are even older. _Moonchased_ , my aunt used to call people whose eyes are as sad as yours. I can read the sign on you as clearly as I see your face. That is all I will tell. I would not have said anything, but one such as your sister disappearing is not a light matter." She shook her head, as one greeting unfortunate news with practiced forbearance. "You will be at the center of events to come, I think. Hold fast to that which you know and love, and that which you know as truth; old things which have not been forgotten must remain in memory for a reason."

-++ CC ++-

"Stiles?" Derek blinked. "What do you want?"

Stiles looked conflicted for a few seconds, as if he hadn’t sought Derek out on the balcony garden, then smiled uncertainly at Derek. "I have something that I think you'd like. Come see!"

Derek followed Stiles down the street, towards the northeastern part of the settlement. The buildings around them got emptier and more run-down the closer they got to the Barrier, until the street was empty and the buildings silent, and then the buildings were fragments of buildings, the roof or entire walls knocked down. It was when they were climbing over a large flat block of white stone that Derek realized they'd reached the Rubble.

"Where are we going?" he asked.

"Just a few more minutes," said Stiles, panting slightly as he hauled himself over heap of smashed roof tiles. He slipped on a loose pipe and would have fallen if not for Derek instinctively grabbing him by the waist and supporting him until he got his footing. "Ugh, you're not even breathing hard. You know, Scott used to have asthma, couldn't even run half a mile without kneeling over and wheezing."

"Oh?" said Derek, trying not to sound as tense as he suddenly felt.

"Yeah. I noticed that it seems to be gone, though. How hard do you guys train? Or is it a perk of the Laikos Protocol?"

Derek narrowed his eyes. "You know about the treatment."

"Yup." Stiles glanced backwards at Derek, his face unreadable. "Like I said before, I was going to sign up for the Command Forces along with Scott."

It occurred to Derek, belatedly, that he couldn't tell if Stiles was lying, because Stiles had elevated his own heartrate by climbing all over the rubble. "Was that why you brought me out here?" he asked. "To tell me that you know?"

"What? No, dude, I have no idea what the hell goes through your head sometimes." Stiles shook his head. "Over there, that's where we need to go."

There was, incongruously, a staircase hidden amidst the rubble. It had probably been part of a building that had since joined the pieces of building material piled up around them. Stiles led them down the stairs, pulling out a flashlight when light from the moons no longer reached them. Derek kept a careful ear out for any noise, uncomfortably aware that a slight disturbance could send a pile of rubble crashing down on them. 

At the end of the stairs, the space opened up, beyond what even Stiles' flashlight could reach.

Derek took a deep breath. Metal and oil and machinery. "A hangar?" he guessed.

Stiles' surprise was a faint puff of spice. "How the hell do you do that? There's no way a _hangar_ has a specific smell. I got some formaldehyde on my lab coat last week and Scott kept sniffing the air and saying he could smell a dead thing."

"For most humans, understanding scent involves memory association," said Derek. "Scott hasn't fully adjusted to all his enhanced senses yet. In any case, I've been doing this a lot longer than he has."

"You make it sound like you're a hundred years old. At the most, you're, what, early thirties? More like late twenties, I bet."

"Why are we here?" asked Derek impatiently.

"Hang on, grumpface," said Stiles. He was moving along the wall, looking for something. "I just need to turn- here it is." There was a click, and a few light bulbs along the wall sputtered to life.

Most of the hangar was still dark, but there was enough life to see large objects covered by tarps arranged along the wall, and piles of vehicle parts and machinery scattered around them.

"I just got it running a couple of days ago," said Stiles, heading for one of the tarp-covered objects. He smelled exceedingly pleased with himself. "Thought it might be something you're interested in." He pulled the tarp back with an expansive, “Voila!”

Derek stared.

“Is that a _Razorbike_?” he asked. If he sounded a little awed - well, there was no one around to witness it, except for Stiles. In any case, he considered his reaction perfectly warranted.

“Yup!” beamed Stiles. “I don’t know how long it’s been stashed away down here, but it’s probably a good thing, or it would have been cannibalized for parts a long time ago. Don’t worry, I checked the property records for this hangar. The last owner, whose name is still on the deeds, left the planet about five years ago, and actually died last summer when the settlement he’d relocated to got run over by Infected. Should have just stayed here, right? I also checked with a lawyer friend of mine, who reassured me that the circumstances would make this hangar and the items therein property of the Base, except as a Level Two-“

“I know the law, Stiles,” Derek said quietly. He approached the Razorbike.

“You can touch it, it won’t bite,” said Stiles.

Derek glared at him, but ran a hand over the bike’s curving handles, the sweetly sloping back. The only place one could find Razorbikes these days was in museums. Derek thought he remembered seeing them zipping around city streets and highways when he was younger, but his memories of those times were... fuzzy. He’d seen plenty of movies, though, and it was all too easy to picture how this one would look, a gleam of light speeding through buildings and woods and wild terrain. 

People stopped using open-air vehicles after the Infection spread across the cities and colonized planets. Objects moving at high speeds actually attracted the attention of the Deadeyes, and while one or two of them might be easily outrun, it was all too easy for one to leap onto a moving vehicle and munch on the passengers inside. Derek had heard of cases where unlucky passengers got sliced by an outstretched zombie claw and underwent conversion while the bike was still travelling. The bike was admitted into a town, a city, and that was that.

“I figured, you know, since you don’t have to worry about zombie sneak attacks, you can probably make use of this at some point,” said Stiles. 

“You don’t want to it?”

“Nah, I fall over walking on my own two feet, you don’t want to put me on something that goes seventy miles an hour on average and actually requires _balance_.” Stiles shrugged. “You’ll probably need to replace some parts, though. It’s in fairly good condition, for its age, but it’s still been sitting down here for years. I thought about fixing it up properly before showing it to you - well, okay, getting somebody else to fix it up while I manfully observe - only, Scott mentioned that you single-handedly fixed the transport when you guys got stuck in the Batu Gulf.”

Derek shrugged. Fixing the transport had been the easy part, despite nearly drowning several times - trying not to kill his Pack or let anyone kill anyone else when they'd been stuck in that transport for over a week and everyone had full-on cabin fever, _that_ had been the main trial of that mission. Having a legitimate excuse to get out of the transport, even if it meant clinging to its side while water crashed down every few minutes, was likely the only thing that averted a bloody homicide.

He resisted temptation for a few seconds more, then thought, _fuck it_ , and swung one leg over the bike. The saddle was stiff from lack of use, and comfortable in the way expensive things were. He'd been on a bike only once, a rusting Anaconda. This didn't even compare. He leaned forward, the sinuous curve of the bike making the placement of his arms and legs intuitive. 

"Uh. Yeah." Stiles swallowed audibly. "Looks, um. Suits you. Very, very you. Definitely." 

Derek glanced over his shoulder at Stiles. Stiles' eyes were drifting down over the Razorbike - specifically, where Derek's body was draped over the bike - and the flush on his face and dilating eyes weren't exactly hard to read, even if the familiar cloying scent wasn't flooding Derek's nostrils afresh.

Ignoring it was habit at this point. The knowledge that Stiles wouldn't push, that Stiles was embarrassed about his reactions, made it more amusing than anything else. 

Adjusting his seat slightly had him flexing his thighs and pushing back on his buttocks. Stiles made a low, strangled noise, stepping none too subtly back to put more space between himself and Derek.

"Yes, I get it, you really like the bike, you're welcome," spluttered Stiles.

-++ CC ++-

For the most part, he and Allison tended to ignore each other's existence, insofar as their jobs would allow them. She followed Derek's direction on where to station herself, and Derek trusted her to do her best to protect the Pack.

"I'm going to kill you one day, you know," said Allison, while they kept a careful eye on the excursion team chasing, for some indiscernible reason, a family of Trubells all over the meadow.

Derek didn't even bother turning towards her perch. "I know."

-++ CC ++-

"I think I've found where Laura Hale stayed while she was here," announced Stiles, barging into Derek's room.

Derek didn't bother pausing his sit-up, just waved Stiles to his desk. 

"Seriously, do you use all your free time working out?" muttered Stiles as he walked past and helped himself to Derek's computer console. "I mean, it explains the ripped bod, and everybody with functioning eyes is very appreciative, don't get me wrong. But if I haven't seen you working on that Razorbike, I'd think you didn't have any hobbies or anything. The rest of the Pack is convinced that all you do when you're not on a mission is lurk in a dark corner and wallow in your manpain."

"Why would I need hobbies?" Derek asked, frowning. "And never say 'manpain' again."

Stiles gave Derek a dubious look, though he didn't stop typing, the projected keyboard following his hands when he turned a little in his chair. "Why does anyone need hobbies? So that you have something to bond with other people about? Oh, wait, you don't do that anyway. Nor do you do small talk, except on pain of death. Maybe, hm, just so you have something you enjoy that doesn't involve weapons or zombies or the use of one on the other. All work and no play, etc."

"Like you said, that's what the Razorbike is for," said Derek. 

"Which, I'd like to point out, _I_ got for you. Okay, here." 

Derek swung his legs back and did a handspring to get to standing, which earned him a very unimpressed look from Stiles. Derek nearly made a face at him, but remembered at the last second that they were both, in fact, _fully grown adults_.

Stiles was, obviously, a very bad influence.

There were at least half a dozen windows floating above the desk, and Stiles minimized them all except for one. Derek thought he saw one window covered with a coding language that Derek had never seen before, likely running a script of debatable legality, before it shrunk to a thumbnail and got relegated to hover at the back of the desk. 

The window that Stiles left open contained a receipt for a rent payment. Laura had opted to use her birth ID rather than her name; it was something that people were legally allowed to do if they were registered in the Central Cities, but was hardly ever used in practice because people seldom bothered to remember their birth ID.

"How did you get her B-I-D?" asked Derek, frowning. "The personal files are sealed." Or they were supposed to be. But if Stiles could find a way around that, then so could others.

It turned out, "Couldn't access her personal files," said Stiles, "Twenty years ago, medical facilities in all the Central Cities used the same algorithm to generate birth IDs based on the infant's given name, date and time of birth, and the facility's Med registration number. You've already given me all that information, so I just got hold of the algorithm." 

"I see." Derek thought he could understand why Scott said Stiles had a talent for piecing things together. Too smart for his own good.

"Not that I didn't try to access her personal records at first," said Stiles, throwing Derek a knowing look. "Only, it seems like she was declared system-dead over ten years ago." System-dead meant that the person to whom a set of records belonged was to be considered, for all intents and purposes, dead, but there wasn't a timestamp for death or a medical confirmation to definitively rule the person as officially deceased. This usually happened when there wasn't a body, which these days was due to reasons of zombie. 

Or, in Laura and Derek's case, a need to disappear.

If Stiles' father had worked for Command, Stiles likely knew all that. What else could Stiles have uncovered? A vanity search of the Hale name would have undoubtedly brought up the fire, but as the Overseer pointed out, it was not an unusual name. His grandmother had worked to keep the names of all the minors in the family out of the press whenever there was a piece done on the family, and Laura had opted to continue being under the blanket protection when she turned eighteen. Any mention of Derek's parents' background would simply have stated that they had two children. 

Derek met Stiles' gaze, waiting to see if Stiles would actually ask. Stiles ducked his head; no, then.

"Anyway," said Stiles, clearing his throat, "She rented this room in a converted warehouse. Cheap, because it's so near the Barrier." Stiles brought up an image of a building, with a corresponding map of Beacon where the site in question was highlighted red. “It’s paid for until the end of the year.”

Derek memorized the address. "All right." He straightened up. The Beacon uniform he was wearing was getting a little sweaty; he went to the closet to get a fresh one.

"Wait, wait, are you going there now?" asked Stiles.

Derek pulled off his shirt and raised an eyebrow. He didn't miss the way Stiles' eyes dipped down over his bare chest. "Yes?"

Stiles visibly dragged his gaze back up, flushing brightly. "Um. Just - the guy who owns that place, Ash Eba Stimms, he's got a bit of a reputation. He won't let you in unless you pay him for the room or slap him with some kind of warrant. Either way, it'll draw attention, and I have a feeling you want to keep this under wraps?"

Definitely too smart for his own good. Derek looked into his closet and considered his newly cleaned skinsuit, currently folded and sitting on the shelf. "What about just breaking in?"

"Possible, if we can get the key to the main building," Stiles answered without missing a beat. "The main building is linked to Beacon's central security grid. Almost impossible to hack into without drawing attention, and in a small place like Beacon, they can trace the computer doing the hacking pretty easily. The apartment itself should be a standard single-unit lock, I've been breaking into those since I was ten."

Derek nodded. "All right, I'll see about the key."

"Hey, none of your _grrrr_ tactics, okay? The guy's a tough nut to crack. He won't be easily intimidated, and even if he promises to keep quiet, next time you check the news feeds there'll be a video of him on some morning show soap-boxing about Spec agents mistreating innocent civilians."

"Don't worry," said Derek, baring a bit of teeth, "He won't meet me at all."

-++ CC ++-

Derek and Stiles were in the library, looking through inventory lists, when Boyd walked in and wordlessly slid the key-tag to the center of the table. It was on a keychain that bore the name of Laura’s apartment building.

"How did you get that?" squeaked Stiles, arms flying everywhere. "I've been working on Stimms for years and he won’t even give me the time of day!"

Boyd shrugged wordlessly.

-++ CC ++-

There were only a handful of personal effects. An antique analogue wristwatch with an obnoxiously loud tick, the knife she'd bought right after they left the Hale name behind, a battered but still-functioning flashlight. He pocketed the lot and walked the room, as if inspecting each inch of wall with meticulous attention. He took slow, deep breaths. There was only the faintest hint of Laura. The closed room meant that the air inside hadn't been disturbed much, but he suspected she hadn't spent a great deal of time there.

"What's this?" came Stiles' voice from the adjoining room.

Somehow, in the five or so minutes since Derek had taken his eyes off him, Stiles had managed to locate a hidden space built into the floor and pried off the loose floorboards that had been covering it. 

Stiles grinned at whatever he was reading from Derek's expression. "Dad taught me how to find people's usual hiding places. Partly because he wanted me to make mine so good that he wouldn't find it, after the porn stash incident of '59. A long and thoroughly humiliating story."

Derek rolled his eyes, but wasn't entirely successful at stopping his lips from twitching upwards. He watched Stiles carefully lift out a sturdy wooden box.

There were no marks or labels on the box. But the exposed skin on the back of his neck and on his arms began tingling lightly. His body began to step backwards before he was even aware of it. He managed to restrain his movements to a minute adjustment of stance. 

Staying where he was became harder when Stiles found the clasp on the side of the box, unlocked it, and carefully lifted the lid.

"They're... weeds?"

"Wolfsbane," said Derek gruffly. Too gruff - he cleared his throat and forced his vocal chords back into their human configuration. "It's a type of plant native to Earthworld."

"So she brought it here with her," said Stiles. "That's a bit strange. I don't see any roots or seeds, just the leaves and flowers, so she wasn't intending to plant them."

The thought of Laura trying to do that almost made Derek snort. A werewolf transporting wolfsbane. The wooden box likely had some kind of damping effect on the wolfsbane; even so, he couldn't imagine having to carry it for an extended period of time.

His attention was fixed on the wolfsbane that he didn't hear movement outside until the footsteps were right outside the door.

"Someone's coming!" The lone window wasn't the type that could be opened. Fortunately, Derek had scoped out the room when they first got in. He grabbed the back of Stiles' uniform and yanked him over to closet standing in the corner.

It was a tight fit, even with only a couple of sets of clothing in there with them. Derek practically had to flatten Stiles against the back of the closet in order to close the door. 

They heard the apartment door sliding open, one set of heavy footsteps walking into the room. The owner didn't seem agitated, and there was a faint sound of fingers tapping on a tablet. The footsteps crossed the main room and took a step into the living room, then the bathroom, then the window. The person's scent wasn't familiar, but Derek figured it was Mr. Stimms. He likely heard movement or voices in the room and felt the need to do a quick check.

He heard Stiles swallowing. The young man seemed to be taking great pains to keep still.

It struck Derek that Stiles was the same height - he'd known, on some level, but Stiles always seemed to make himself smaller - and that those were some surprisingly solid muscles underneath the lab coat and extra layers of clothing. Everywhere their bodies made contact felt strangely sensitive and warm. Stiles reeked of honey-musk arousal.

"I'm sorry," Stiles whispered. He tried to wiggle to one side, despite the fact that there was nowhere for him to go.

Derek halted his movements with one hand on Stiles' arm. "It's fine."

It was. Derek had gotten used to it - it wasn't like Stiles could help his body's reactions, and unlike a lot of people Derek had had to put up with in the past, Stiles clearly accepted it when Derek told him nothing was going to happen between them.

Which didn't explain why _Derek_ 's heartbeat was speeding up now.

-++ CC ++-

There were voices outside his room, what sounded like most of the Pack gathered in the hallway, but Derek didn't pay them any attention until he heard his name.

"-Derek as well?"

"He never comes out with us. In case you haven't noticed, he's not exactly the most sociable type."

"I don't really care about how he is with other people, I just think it's important for you guys to bond with each other outside of a life-or-death situation."

A minute later, Stiles poked his head into Derek's room. "Hey, some of us are going for dinner out in town. Dane told me about this great kitchen café. Come with us?"

Derek was going to say no, he really was, but he found himself standing up and following Stiles out to where his Pack was waiting in the hallway. They all smelled surprised to see him, but nobody seemed particularly displeased, not even Allison.

He remained quiet for most of the night, content to let the others talk amongst themselves. Stiles kept shooting him questioning looks, but once he saw that Derek was comfortable, and that the Pack was obviously used to his lack of active participation, he stopped trying to draw Derek into the main conversations, instead chatting to him about random things every now and then.

It was... nice.

-++ CC ++-

"What is that?"

Derek didn't bother looking up; he'd heard Stiles' approach before Stiles had even walked into their section of the barracks. "What?"

Stiles pointed at the box on Derek's desk. 

"Family heirloom," Derek said. He normally disliked showing his personal items to other people, even to members of his own Pack, but he was surprisingly okay with Stiles knowing about this. "The box used to belong to my grandfather."

"It's beautiful," Stiles said quietly. "You see a lot of wooden items here, because of the Millennial trees, but they're fairly rare outside of Cali. But, um, I was specifically curious about that symbol on it."

Derek looked at Stiles instead of the box; he knew every inch of the box, by this point. "Funny you should notice it. That's an old symbol for wolfsbane. That plant from Laura's apartment." Which, appropriately, was now being housed by the box. Stiles' scent turned unsettled. "What is it?"

"Probably a coincidence," said Stiles. "But I've seen that symbol before. Classified experiments at the Labs; they usually use symbols to minimize the number of people who can understand the reports."

It took a great deal of effort for Derek to maintain a casual air. "You mean, they've been running tests using wolfsbane?"

"I don't know the specifics, I'm technically not supposed to have seen the files to begin with, much less know what they mean, though Harris has never bothered to check what my actual clearance level is-"

"Stiles."

Stiles made a face at him. "If it is wolfsbane, then the tests have discovered that the Infected don't like going near it.” He shrugged. "That's all I got from the one page of one report that I saw for, like, no more than thirty seconds. I'm pretty sure it was the same symbol, though. I thought it was some new synthetic drug."

Derek hesitated, but said, "In Earthworld herblore, wolfsbane is traditionally used to ward off supernatural creatures."

He expected Stiles to scoff. Instead, Stiles frowned and said, thoughtfully, "I wouldn't really call the Infected 'supernatural creatures'. I mean, yeah, we call them zombies, but they're not zombies at all. No preference for brains, for one thing. A real supernatural creature would be something cool like vampires or werewolves or poltergeists."

"Suddenly I know how Scott can name every low-budget monster movie from the twentieth century," Derek said drily.

-++ CC ++-

"The Overseer recommended that all excursions outside be accompanied by at least one member of my team," growled Derek.

"Key word being 'recommended', _Alpha_ ," snapped Guard Captain Finstock, stepping right into Derek's space. "We survived for years on our own without a lick of help from Centuria or Command. We're not going sit around twiddling our thumbs waiting for one of your people to babysit us."

Derek opened his mouth to point out that they clearly needed babysitting, but then Stiles' hand was clapping over his shoulder. This was shortly followed by Stiles telling the both of them to take it easy or take it somewhere else, there were people here in need of medical attention.

Chastised, Derek scrubbed a hand over his face. The excursion team - what remained of it - were all huddled together next to a medvan while two medics examined them one by one. Their escort of Planetary Guards numbered even fewer, and another two medics were running bodyscans and quick consults with them. 

Then - alarm.

Derek didn't understand it, at first. His hearing was overtaken by a quickening heartbeat, jogging up his pulse in response, then a pungent saffron-charred-seawater blaring right into his nose. He looked around confusedly and saw Stiles standing stock still, pale face paling impossibly further. He was staring at the science team.

Oh, right, these were people Stiles worked with every day. 

"Andy?" Stiles said, voice barely rising above a whisper.

One of the lab techs gave Stiles a pained look. Actually, all five survivors in the science team were staring at Stiles, the fear and tiredness in their collective scent muddling slightly with pity and grief.

"Sorry, Stiles," said another, one of the researchers.

Stiles... crumpled. Before he knew what was happening, Derek was at his side, instinctively propping him up. Stiles buried his face in Derek's shoulder. Misery came off him in waves, smoke and salt, suffocating. Derek, bewildered, just wanted to find out what he'd missed, and maybe kill whatever it was that was doing this to Stiles.

Eventually, Stiles gasped, "It's Lydia. This was Lydia's excursion team. And she's not here. She didn't come back with them."

-++ CC ++-

If Derek thought that Stiles' reaction was alarming, it didn't hold a candle to Jackson's.

"We have to go out there and find her," he declared. His eyes were wide, his heartbeat rocketing madly; he looked a breath away from shifting. Derek could smell the wolf bristling under the surface, barely contained. 

"Jackson," said Isaac, in a cautious, _be reasonable_ tone of voice.

"No." Jackson's eyes flashed a paler blue for a second; a clear sign of the suppressants struggling to keep everything within human parameters and buckling under the tsunami that was Jackson Whittmore.

"She's our friend, too," said Allison, "But one of the survivors witnessed her getting bitten. Even if we find her - I mean, find her zombie - all we can do is kill it."

Jackson turned to look at Derek. He smelled like a wounded animal. Something inside Derek clenched in sympathy; one of the Pack is hurt, his instincts said. Pack dynamics were complicated, multilayered things. Jackson wasn't the literal youngest in the Pack, nor the most vulnerable, but he was the newest addition, and the least experienced with all the parts of himself that were no longer entirely human. That made him the youngest, in a sense, the Pack _cub_ ; even now, Derek could see the others drifting close, instinctively wanting to encircle him. And Derek had always had a weakness for cubs.

_Help him._

"Everybody, full suit," he barked. "Transport hangar in ten minutes."

Scott and Allison gave him surprised looks, but didn't voice any objections, trailing after the rest of the Pack when they rushed towards the armory. 

"What?" asked Stiles. He blinked at the suddenly empty room. "You're going out?"

"We'll find her and bring her home, Stiles," Derek said gently. "One way or another."

A rush of emotions passed through Stiles' expression. "I want to come with you."

Derek sighed. "No."

"Please. Look, I'll stay in the transport, I know I'll be a liability out in the open, but... I need to be there when you find her. Please, Derek."

There was no guarantee that they would even find her. The forest stretched for thousands of acres, and the freshly Infected could travel long distances in search of meat.

"Fine." 

Derek told himself it was because he knew Stiles would find some way to get involved, that Stiles probably knew how to get outside himself without alerting the Planetary Guards, and it was safer for everyone if he was where Derek could keep an eye on him. It had nothing to do with Stiles' wide brown eyes, or how Derek couldn't quite stand the way Stiles smelled right then. Where Jackson had been all fiery desperation, burning, Stiles was still partially in shock, the fear and despair touching on a deep, immovable grief that had Derek thinking about ashes, flames hot enough to warp metal, an empty stretch of space, utter silence in a moon-lit night. 

An old nightmare; he slammed the door down on it.

-++ CC ++-

The forest was dark as the transport trundled through the trees, following the route that the excursion team had taken earlier that day. It was silent inside. The Pack's anxiety sat heavily in the air - for all that they had less to fear from the Deadeyes than the rest of the population, they had all still grown up in a world where the Infected were a constant threat. This mission went against the two big pieces of precautionary wisdom: do not go out at night, and do not go after someone who's been Infected.

Stiles was a wan, silent presence on the back bench. If anybody noticed the frequency with which Derek turned around to glance at him, they didn't point it out; likely they assumed Derek was just discomfited by having a new person on board. 

Erica had the weapons console today. There had been no contest - there was a grim understanding that, if the transport got surrounded, she would have to shoot a path clear, and Lydia might well be among the ones to swarm the transport, if she had remained in the area she'd been bitten in.

Correction: if the zombie had remained in the area it had been bitten in.

Derek actually had very little expectation of finding Lydia, dead body or zombie, tonight. But he knew Jackson and Stiles wouldn't rest until they gave it a try. Which would involve jumping out and trying to track her by scent. Jackson had brought along one of her shirts. If Stiles thought anything strange about it, or was discomfited about the evidence of Jackson and Lydia's relationship, he didn't show any sign. Still in shock, then, probably. 

It occurred to Derek that they probably wouldn't even have to concoct a creative excuse for why they had to go get out on foot and run around sniffing the air. Stiles knew about the Laikos Protocol, and he'd already hinted in the past that he was aware of them possessing enhanced senses. It wasn't too far a stretch to guess that their sense of smell was good enough for tracking someone by.

Would it be harder to track a zombie? At least a dead body would be stationary. How much did a zombie's scent differ from that of the... previous occupant of the body? It wasn't something Derek had had to consider before.

And that was when Boyd swore, loudly, with words that Derek didn't even know the meaning of. The transport screeched to a sudden halt. Derek and Erica had to brace themselves on their consoles, their heads passing through the array of projected windows floating in front of them, while everybody else on the benches grabbed for the hand-holds hanging from the ceiling for this very purpose.

Boyd, eyes wide, switched all the video feeds on the walls to what the two front external cameras were showing.

It was Lydia, standing right in the middle of the path.

There was dead silence inside the transport. Derek couldn't even hear anybody breathing. 

Lydia, or at least her body, was still in the hazard suit, minus the helmet. She- _It_ looked dirty, grimy, long hair loose and tangled, suit ripped and torn in places. There was dried blood on the face and upper body. On its shoulder, unmistakable, was a large bite mark.

It must have been attracted by the light and noise of the transport, Derek thought numbly.

And then the zombie stumbled closer to the transport. Thumped it on the hull, looked right into one of the external cameras, and yelled, "Are you from Beacon? I need somebody to give me a gun, please."


	5. Chapter 5

Jackson was out of his seat and at the hatch before anybody else inside the transport could take a breath. He would have bounded right outside, Derek knew, if the hatch wasn't sealed and locked from the pilot console. 

"Dammit, Boyd, let me out!" said Jackson.

Boyd looked at Derek. Derek hesitated, but Jackson was in his full suit. Even if more zombies showed up and swarmed the transport, Jackson would last at least a few minutes on his own. Derek nodded, and added, "Keep all external cameras trained on the forest, heat scanners at maximum sensitivity. I want to know if anything comes out of those trees, even if it's one of those rabbit things." 

His mind flashed briefly to the unidentified large animal that seemed to show up at unexpected times. He wasn't sure why, but instinct told him that the animal would likely be out in the woods tonight.

He hesitated for only another moment, then hauled himself out of his chair and up the hatch. 

"Jackson, stay away from me," ordered Lydia, backing away as Jackson leapt down the side of the transport. 

Jackson, body so tense it looked like he was made from marble, ignored her, stalking forward and pulling her to him. 

Lydia let out a high noise of protest, which turned into a sob, and after a few seconds' passive resistance she slumped forward and buried her face in his shoulder, her arms coming up to clutch at him tightly. Tears streamed down her face, making trails on the dirt. Derek could see her lips moving, but her voice was too low even for him to hear.

He could guess what it was about, though, when Jackson let out a choked, " _No_."

"Jackson, please," begged Lydia. "I don't want to... I don't want to end up like them. If I have to die, I want it to be quick. I don't want the last thing you see of me to be a braindead walking corpse."

"I can't shoot you," said Jackson. "I can't. You can't ask that of me."

"I know." Lydia pressed a kiss to Jackson's forehead, then met Derek's eyes over Jackson's shoulder. "Alpha Derek. You can do it."

" _No_." Jackson spun around to face Derek, spreading his arms protectively and keeping Lydia behind him. "Derek."

Lydia moved. There was hardly time to think - not much more than a minute must have passed since the transport stopped - but a part of Derek must have known. From her scent, perhaps; that stale, rotten-wood fear and charcoal bitterness was something he recognized. His gun was in his hand even as she pulled the beamer off Jackson's back. 

"Jackson, _down_ ," roared Derek, vision tinting red. Jackson responded on instinct, practically crumpling to the ground. Before Jackson even started moving, Derek _threw_ his gun at Lydia.

Lydia let out a pained yelp when Derek's gun hit her hand, knocking away the beamer. Derek didn't give her a chance to pick either weapon up; he closed the distance between them in less than a second, not bothering to keep his speed at a believably human level, and his hand was around Lydia's throat while she was still processing what had happened.

"Doctor Martin," he said, addressing her as if they were merely meeting in the Labs. "What is the maximum length of time the virus can survive outside of a host environment?"

"Six hours," Lydia responded promptly. Her eyes were wide as she stared up at him. This close, he could smell the Infected blood on her, but she also smelled very distinctly human. He wasn't gripping her hard, just enough to keep her from moving. She didn't smell afraid at all. Or, at least, not of him. 

This was one dangerous woman, Derek decided.

"And how long has it been since your initial exposure?"

She frowned. "I... I don't know. I don't really remember the attack. One moment, we were taking samples by the old river, and the next thing I know, I'm stumbling around in the woods with blood all over me and a gaping hole on my shoulder. That was about two hours ago."

"Your excursion team logged the attack as having taken place approximately three hours ago. So you've lost an hour, at the most. Have you come into contact with any of the Infected since you regained awareness?"

"No. I thought it was strange, but Doctor Warren once observed that Infected prefer not to get close to subjects who are undergoing conversion. He posited that it confused their sense of smell."

"Derek?" said Jackson, standing again. There was a painful note of hope in his voice.

"Jackson, stop," said Lydia firmly. "Don't think like that. Just because it hasn't happened yet-"

"You have had two to three hours to undergo conversion," Derek cut in. "Another four hours, and any remaining virus in your body will be dead. We can do a blood test now, but you know as well as I do that it'll be clean, because you wouldn't still be talking if you had a detectable concentration of virus in your blood stream."

"As long as there's even a micron in my cerebrospinal fluid, I can still undergo conversion," said Lydia. "Do you know what happens in a conversion, Alpha Derek? It starts when the virus reaches the brain. Body temperature sky-rockets. Signals to the endocrine system lead to a cascade of changes in the brain and the neural structures of the body. The frontal lobes liquefy. Pain receptors are rendered obsolete. Can you imagine what it must be like, to feel yourself dying from the inside out?"

"Yes," said Jackson.

"Jackson, the weapons," said Derek.

Derek released Lydia once Jackson had retrieved his beamer and Derek's gun.

"The Infection has been around for over ten years," said Lydia. "In all that time, in over thirty colonized worlds, two hundred space stations, a thousand fleets - there has never been a case of exposure without subsequent conversion."

"There has never been one _recorded_ case," Stiles' voice interjected from the transport's external speakers. 

"You brought Stiles too?" demanded Lydia.

"There's us," said Jackson. "We get exposed to the virus all the time."

"The Laikos Protocol changes the body's biochemistry so drastically that the subjects are no longer viable hosts for the Infection," said Lydia. 

"Is that what they tell people?" Jackson muttered under his breath.

"Then consider environmental and societal factors," Stiles said. "People have been too scared. They see someone being bitten, especially someone they care about, they shoot them. Or the victim kills themselves," even unseen, Stiles managed to make them aware that he was looking at the weapons in Jackson's hands. "And if someone with a bite manages to hide it and tests clean, what do you think the chances are that they'll report it to the authorities? They know they'll be turned into lab rats. _We_ know what would be done to them."

"Miracles have not been _allowed_ to happen," said Derek quietly. "But here and now, it can. There's nobody here you can hurt if you do go into conversion."

"There's Stiles. And Allison, if I'm correct in assuming that you brought your whole team."

"I won't let that happen," Derek promised. It surprised him, how easily the words came; he was doubly surprised when Lydia nodded, believing them. 

"You really believe that I'm somehow... _immune_?"

"I believe that you won't go into conversion, because three hours have already passed and you still haven't," Derek stated blandly. Miracles, he had little time for, but facts could be dealt with. "Whatever that means, I leave it up to you to decide. But we have the luxury of time, for once, and we can wait - four more hours, to be safe, so that _you_ know you'll be all right."

"And if you remain in view of the transport's cameras, we can show the facility that you really were lucid for all that time, and that we gave the virus plenty of opportunity to initiate conversion," said Stiles.

"Wait, weren't you guys just talking about, you know, people being made into lab rats if they admit to not converting even after being bitten?" asked Jackson.

Derek paused. "One of the techs reported seeing you being bitten, Lydia. And you've been out here for hours. We can clean you up a bit and cover the bite mark, but I don't think anyone's going to believe that the Infected just left you alone all this time."

Lydia shook her head, visibly squaring her shoulders. "No, you're right. And if I really am - immune, then it's my duty to report it, and let myself be studied. If I don't, every time I hear of someone being killed, I'd wonder if something about my case could have saved them."

Derek nodded. "Boyd, Stiles, someone let Base know what's going on. Tell them we'll stay out here for four more hours, but we'll check in regularly."

"Aww, man, they're not going to like this," said Stiles.

"Which is why I'm letting one of you handle it," said Derek. He looked at Lydia. "Now, we wait."

-++ CC ++-

Stiles had to stay inside the transport. Stiles had made vague promises to listen to Derek while they were on the field, and Derek had promised Lydia that he'd keep Stiles safe. Yet, somehow, Derek found himself sitting next to Stiles on the ground, the both of them leaning back against the transport.

Derek looked at Stiles. "What do you know about the treatment? The Laikos Protocol?"

Stiles shrugged. "More than most people do, I think?" His expression turned distant, like it often did when he was reciting information, as if he was reading from a book that only he could see. "Humanity's answer to the Infection. It involves a virus, itself, but the v-word scares people faster than anything else these days. The virus is administered intravenously to subjects over a period of three days, and then the subjects are placed under observation. Each subject's reaction is different. Most exhibit heightened aggression, slight physical alterations, the disappearance of pre-existing ailments."

"Sixty percent of subjects die from the treatment," Stiles' voice wavered slightly, but he continued, "Though it is suspected that the numbers are actually higher. If the subjects remain alive after a period of no less than one month, the treatment is considered successful, and the subject's training to be a Specialized Combat Agent begins. The members of Spec-CAL cannot be infected, and the physical enhancements caused by the treatment allow them to combat the Infected with great efficiency." He looked at Derek. "How did I do?"

"Textbook perfect," Derek said quietly. He stared at his hands. He had a sudden urge, then, to reveal to Stiles exactly what the Laikos 'virus' did. He pictured Stiles being frightened, horrified - but he wouldn't be, would he? He'd probably think it _cool_ , demand for Scott and Derek to show him everything.

It had been a long time since Derek had felt completely sure, had been willing to trust, that someone wouldn't react badly at finding out what they truly were.

Not that Derek would actually risk it. He'd been very, very wrong the previous time.

-++ CC ++-

"Did you say that somebody saw me getting bitten?" Lydia suddenly asked.

Derek and Stiles looked over to where she and Jackson were sitting on the ground.

"Yeah. Natalie," answered Stiles.

"That can't be right." Lydia frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't remember getting bitten, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't while I was within sight of the excursion team." Lydia looked down at the bite mark, which Isaac had disinfected, stitched up, and covered with a gauze pad. "I remember the Infected showing up, and the Guards fighting them off. Then something grabbed me from behind - I didn't see what it was, but the grip was insanely strong. Last thing I remember is being pulled away from the team, dragged along the ground. I hadn't been bitten yet, though, I'm sure of it. My helmet was still on."

Jackson peered at her back. "It does look like you've been dragged."

"It's pretty easy for people's memories to become confused during a traumatic event," said Allison from inside the transport. "She was the only one who mentioned seeing you. There was somebody else who was also reported bitten, Doctor Ren-Tivonne - three different people independently mentioned seeing him being attacked. They managed to bring his body home, or what was left of it."

Lydia frowned and went back to whatever she and Jackson were quietly talking about.

-++ CC ++-

Isaac clambered out of the transport and sat on the other side of Stiles. Stiles, who was asleep. On Derek's shoulder. Having an extra Pack-mate on hand made Derek a little less edgy, though he was still tempted to pick Stiles up and bodily return him to the transport.

Attempting to distract himself, Derek nodded towards Jackson and Lydia. “Really?” he asked Isaac. From what he’d seen of their interactions, he thought they hated each other. Affection had never really factored in with the people Jackson chose to sleep with.

Isaac shrugged. “I didn’t know he was carrying a torch for her. I mean, they were all over each other when we were teenagers, but I always thought it was more, like, pooling their popularity points at school.”

Wait. “Wait, what?”

“Um, I’m not sure what you’re asking,” said Isaac, blinking.

“They used to go out?” Derek frowned. “Wait, you were in the same school as them?”

Isaac stared at Derek. “Yeah? I mean, I get why you’re surprised, normally we wouldn’t have been able to afford it, but my dad was the swim coach there-“

Derek shook his head. “It’s not that. I just didn’t know you and Jackson knew each other in the past.”

“Well, Jackson wouldn’t have recognized me,” said Isaac. “But, if you really want to know, Jackson and I were _neighbors_. I would always know when he was going out on a date with Lydia because he would take that awful Mercedes car of his and fly right past my bedroom window.”

-++ CC ++-

Derek didn't think about it. Derek was very good at not thinking about things. He'd had a great deal of practice.

Upon returning to Beacon, there was the anticipated barrage of questions and disguised hysterics and so many strong emotions flying around that they overpowered even the Decon Juice. The Overseer herself was there, as was Doctor Harris. Derek answered only the questions directed to him, Stiles butted in on everything, and Lydia smelled ready to set the entire settlement on fire in order to stop questions that even Derek could tell were pointless. 

They eventually ushered Lydia off in a medvan; she won on the count of not being restrained, and pretended to lose by agreeing to be cuffed to one of the brave and indestructible NightSpecs. Derek chose Jackson out of a desire to remain in possession of all his limbs.

Everything after this would be up to the Overseer and whatever passed for bureaucracy in the Labs. Naturally, Stiles managed to get himself invited along with one of the groups of researchers intending to hover around in the Labs until they heard more news. Derek and the rest of his Pack were dismissed. He saw Scott waving tiredly at Stiles, then supporting a visibly listing Allison as they made their way back to the barracks.

It wasn't a physically taxing mission, but the Pack's scent was riddled with exhaustion. 

It wasn't until Derek was alone in his room that he realized: his suit smelled of Stiles.

Not surprising - he and Stiles had been sitting close together for at least two hours. Stiles' head lolling onto Derek's shoulder in sleep had been simultaneously calming and anxiety-inducing; there was a strange sort of peace in listening to Stiles' heartbeat mellowing, and at the same time, Derek couldn't help but be even more aware of their surroundings, because Stiles sleeping meant slower reaction time meant less time to get to safety if a zombie came crashing in.

_He's human. It's finally hitting home, isn't it? How easy it would be to lose him?_

"Who the _fuck_ falls asleep out in the open when there are Deadeyes around?" Derek hissed. He wondered if a modest punch-dent would give the wall some extra character.

_Someone who has every confidence that they are in safe hands._

Derek shook his head. Whatever his hands were, _safe_ was something they were not.

_You could always offer him the bite. Or, what do you guys call it now, the treatment? Make him safe for sure._

"Shut _up_ , Laura!"

The loudness of his own breathing made him aware that the room was very, very quiet. Not that it hadn't been quiet before, but this was different. In the air hung a feeling like shock, something between cautious and expectant. This was the thing about scents: sometimes it was hard to tell where they were really coming from. The senses, after all, were only interpretations of the environment made by the brain. 

The only thing Derek knew was: I don't even care anymore.

_You've never reacted to me before._

"Yes, I have."

_Not really. There was always room for doubt. I've never met anyone so careful, even in your own head. You always made sure that everything you said, everything you thought, could be a response to something else._

He sat down on the bed, burying his face in his hands. "Maybe I'm too tired now."

_I think you're scared. You care about him, and that terrifies you, because Derek Hale loses everyone he cares about, one way or another._

"Well, _you're_ dead." He chuckled darkly, the burn of it like bile in his lungs. 

_Not your fault._

"I should have stayed with you."

_Then you'd be dead with me. So I'm not sorry that you didn't._

-++ CC ++-

It was when Stiles leaned over him to read something on his computer window that Derek smelled it: something, _somebody_ , unfamiliar and _all over Stiles' clothes_.

"Anga says that Laura Hale isn't in the settlement anymore, and she didn't leave the planet- dude, are you _growling_?"

Derek cleared his throat. Loudly. "What were you saying about the streets?"

Stiles raised an eyebrow at him, but then visibly dismissed whatever he read from Derek's face. "So the most likely scenario is that she left, went outside into the forest."

"Which way?"

"Derek, she's been out there for months. I don't know why you're looking for this woman but I really don't think-"

"Which way did she go?"

Stiles sighed. "Well, the Towers won't just let her out, the easiest way to leave would be to get in with a harvest-crew on the way to a Food Field and slip out once you clear the Barrier..."

The unknown smell was irritating, to say the least. Derek's mind was assaulted with images of how that smell could have gotten all over Stiles: unfamiliar hands roaming all over Stiles' body, touching him, pressing against him. He tried to determine if Stiles looked any more rumpled than usual, but it was a lost cause when Stiles' lab coat was in a permanent state of rumpledness. He could not explain the sudden _rage_ at the thought of some _stranger_ having their way with Stiles.

-++ CC ++-

_So. Stiles._

Derek gritted his teeth, adjusting his grip on the top of the closet door. His arms were sweating from the number of pull-ups he'd already done, but he continued on, relishing the burn.

_Is that your type? Cute and smart. You should keep an eye on him._

Shouldn't be hard. It took more work to _not_ be around Stiles a disproportionate number of hours a day. Derek should have instituted a rule where the Pack had to ask the Alpha's permission before adopting a pet.

_Kinky, little brother._

"I swear, you've gotten even more irritating since I started answering back."

-++ CC ++-

_This is getting ridiculous. Tell him!_

"What, that my dead sister talks to me in my head?"

A pause, as if she was considering the idea. _If you actually thought that that would chase him away, you would have told him ages ago._

-++ CC ++-

"Why are you asking about the harvest personnel logs, anyway?"

"Research for improving security measures," answered Stiles easily, with a nod towards Derek. His tone was friendly, easy-going, all remember-how-much-you-like-me. It occurred to Derek, then, that Stiles was obnoxious, the self-styled funny-man. Stiles was ridiculous, loud; people tended to not take him seriously, and he knew it. Stiles could walk into any part of the facility without raising eyebrows. Stiles knew everybody and everybody knew Stiles. Even if they didn’t like him, they saw him as harmless.

Stiles’ dad used to work for Command.

_Stiles’ dad used to work for Command._

Derek waited until they left the administration offices, until they were back in the Pack's section of the barracks. And then he slammed Stiles against the wall. Stiles didn’t even blink.

“Seriously, is this a thing with you? Can’t you just stay at the growling and looming?”

“Who are you?” demanded Derek.

Stiles frowned. “What?”

“Who. Are. You?”

“I don’t know what you’re asking.” 

Derek shoved him further up the wall. Stiles kicked at his shins, his hands coming up to clutch at Derek’s where they were fisted around the front of Stiles’ shirt and lab coat. Derek could hear Stiles’ heart pounding. But Stiles’ scent carried more anger than fear.

“You should have been shipped out of here years ago. Either somebody pulled strings to allow you to stay, or Harris doesn’t have the authorization to make you leave because you’re here on somebody else’s,” growled Derek. “You knew about us. The only people who know about Spec-CAL are those who are members of it, or the very top levels of Command. Now, I’m asking you nicely - who are you, and why are you here?”

“You think I’m some kind of spy?” spluttered Stiles. “What the - look, my life history is an open book. You can verify every place I’ve been to, every place I’ve lived in. Scott can probably tell you most of it. I grew up in Central Three, went to school in CCHE, and came here.”

“Then how do you know so much?”

“Because I’m a genius!” Stiles stopped struggling and seemed to settle for glaring at Derek. “I have ADHD and I don’t know how to keep my nose out of other people’s business - which, not a place where you have the moral high ground, buddy - and I enjoy putting puzzles together, sometimes it's the only thing that can get me to focus.”

Truth - everything he said, he believed in. But Derek began to pick up something else. He couldn’t quite place it, but he remembered scenting it when Stiles talked about Scott, whenever he stepped between Isaac and Jackson. When he kept Derek from pissing other people off. 

Stiles was being protective. But of whom? 

“Your dad,” said Derek. “You’re protecting your dad.”

Stiles snorted, but didn’t answer. Well, that was certainly an answer in itself. 

_Think the idea through, Derek._

“Your best friend enlisted in the Command Forces, put himself forward for Special Unit,” said Derek slowly. “But you didn’t. It can’t be because you have ideological or cultural disagreements with the service. If anything, you’re jealous of Scott, sometimes. And if your father worked for Command, you’re sure to get in, easy. You’re a genius, as you said, you could have gotten any position you wanted.” Unless his father had had a dishonorable discharge or was in some other kind of trouble. But Stiles always reeked of pride whenever he mentioned his father. “Instead, you’ve taken a career in science and got yourself stationed as far away from the Central Cities as you could.”

He stared at Stiles. Stiles stared back. At some point, Derek’s grip had loosened, and Stiles was on his feet again, though still pressed against the wall.

Derek opened his mouth, thoughts scrambling to fit the pieces together, but then Stiles whispered, “Please.”

_Now_ Stiles was afraid. But not for himself. It occurred to Derek that every time he’d seen Stiles afraid, it had always been for someone else. 

And Derek didn’t like Stiles being afraid. It gutted him to be the cause of it. 

His body, the traitor that it was, leaned in, pressing against Stiles. The hands that had been holding Stiles’ clothes moved to the wall on either side of Stiles’ head, Derek’s arms caging him in. Derek wanted to pretend that he was doing it to intimidate; except Stiles, forever impervious to Derek’s bullshit, slid his arms around Derek’s waist, drew him closer, his scent sweetening to trust.

“You’re hiding something,” Derek said, slipping the words right into Stiles’ ear. “I can’t let myself trust you.”

“You shouldn’t,” Stiles agreed. 

“Okay,” Derek said, and finally, finally claimed Stiles’ exasperating, too-clever mouth. Stiles lips were already parted; Derek licked at the bottom one before taking it between his teeth. Stiles made a pleased noise. Derek’s hand stroked Stiles’ jaw, a press of his thumb encouraging Stiles to open wider. When Stiles did, Derek pushed his tongue inside. That same thumb trailed down over Stiles’ throat, stroking gently, and Stiles shuddered even as he sucked on Derek’s tongue. Interesting.

Derek wrapped his fingers around the front of Stiles’ throat; he didn’t push down, just rested his hand there. Stiles gasped, his hips arching off the wall. Derek groaned at the feel of Stiles’ warm, lean body rubbing against his. They had at least five layers of clothing between them, mostly on Stiles, but electric pleasure was tangling with the arousal in Stiles' scent- Derek’s senses were being flooded by it. The sharp, furious burn of sheer _want_ assaulted him, desperate and grasping in a way that he thought he’d outgrown. He _wanted_ , suddenly, so much, everything: to put his mouth all over Stiles, to mark him up, to feel what it was like to be inside him, to see Stiles flushed and breathless and come undone.

They managed to make it to Derek’s bedroom before clothes began coming off. Derek tried not to read too much into how Stiles even knew where the skinsuit opened. Derek’s headset hit the floor with a loud clatter. Yanking down Stiles’ lab coat temporarily trapped Stiles’ arm at his sides; Derek took the opportunity to graze his teeth down the side of Stiles’ neck, and then nip at the bump of his Adam’s apple. Stiles made a pleased sound, tipping his head back to give Derek room.

Urgency rocketed; the need to have Stiles _now_ had Derek practically ripping the rest of Stiles’ clothes off. Stiles was taking too long with Derek’s skinsuit, but when Derek tried to help, Stiles knocked his hands away. 

“I’ve been wanting to do this for so long,” Stiles murmured, “Let me – gods, how are you _real_?” He spread his hands over Derek’s newly bared chest, stroking down, fingers teasing Derek’s nipples. Derek shivered. Stiles peeled the skinsuit off like somebody unwrapping a delicate present. It made Derek’s breath catch; nobody, in his memory, had ever been so _careful_ of him.

By the time they landed on Derek’s bed, both naked, Derek felt hard enough to drill a hole through the walls. He pulled Stiles on top of him, parted his legs. Stiles gasped at feeling their cocks rubbing together.

“Derek, shit, not going to last.”

Neither was Derek. It had been far too long since he’d been touched, had touched anyone, and Stiles was sending his senses reeling; smooth pale skin and delicious sweet scent and soft choked-off sighs.

Stiles reached down and cupped a hand over both their cocks, teasing the heads before curling fingers around both lengths. Derek had to stop his hips from jerking upward into Stiles’ the slight roughness of Stiles’ palm. He slung one leg over Stiles’ hip, linked his hand with Stiles’, tightened the grip around both of them. Precome trickled over their fingers. Stiles’ hips began to thrust, and he leaned down to kiss Derek, whimpering into Derek’s mouth when Derek took control of the pace of their hands and began to jerk them faster.

“Can’t wait to be inside you,” growled Derek. “Fuck you until you can’t walk right. Or do you want to be inside me? I bet your cock feels amazing.”

“Fuck, damn it, Derek, _Derek_ ,” Stiles moaned, and then clenched his eyes, mouth gaping open, a gasping groan ripping out of him as slick come spurted over Derek’s stomach. 

The sight of it mesmerized Derek. But it was the smell of Stiles all over his skin, the thought of Stiles _coming on him_ , that pushed Derek over the edge. He thrust up, pleasure crashing through his entire body, moaning Stiles’ name. His scent joined Stiles’, and the resulting mix was intoxicating.

A shaky hand came up and stroked over Derek’s jaw. Stiles leaned in, tasting Derek’s mouth as their bodies came down from the rush. This was… new, languid kissing after the main event, clearly not meant to go anywhere. Derek slid a hand up Stiles’ back, encouraging him to lie down, half on top of Derek, the weight of him not particularly burdensome to Derek and much more pleasant than a blanket.

"Scott was really unhappy about being in Spec-CAL, at first,” Stiles said sleepily, later, one hand tracing random patterns on Derek's chest. “Not sure why. But I think he was sold when he realized that the treatment had cured his asthma.”

"Your father didn't want you doing the treatment," said Derek.

Stiles sighed. "He never told me directly. But the look on his face every time he heard me and Scott talking about joining the Command Forces, especially the Specs... My mom died when I was young. He did his best to raise me, even though his job took him away a lot. We're all each other has, you know. In the end... I couldn't do that to him."

"You’re a good son."

"I'm not, not really. But Dad and I try, I guess."

-++ CC ++-

The sudden, beeping alarm from his headset on the floor had Derek leaping to his feet and yanking on his skin-suit before his eyes had fully opened. He pulled the headset back on, and the message "Assistance Required - Tower 1" flashed across his eyes. He was peripherally aware of Stiles scrambling across the floor and throwing on his own clothes. Derek went to his closet and pulled out set of Beacon uniforms.

"Here," he said, throwing the clothes at Stiles.

Dressed, the two of them ran out of Derek's room at the same time. Derek's Pack was just stumbling out into the hallway from their own rooms.

Scott blinked when Stiles ran past him with a half-shouted greeting. 

"Was that just-?" Scott's eyes widened as he processed Derek’s scent.

Derek gave him a look. "Not now, Scott."

Scott flushed, his scent turning gnarly with confusion. The muscle on his jaw twitched. But he obligingly refrained from saying anything.

Citrusy surprise flashed through the scent-presence of the Pack as a whole, though the thickness of it varied from person to person - Erica barely exuded any - before settling, unexpectedly, on buttermilk satisfaction. It was unexpected because Packs tended to be very possessive about who their members had relations with, and even more so for the Alpha.

But then, Stiles was hardly a stranger.

-++ CC ++-

“I’m happy for you, you know,” said Erica.

Derek froze. 

As far as he knew, the two of them had an uncomplicated relationship wherein he gave her zombies to kill and she took great delight in killing them. It had occurred to him that there had to be more to her than that, but that was what Boyd and Isaac were for.

She was being sincere, at least. Though her scent was… complicated.

“Really?” said Derek, taking a guess. “Stiles?”

She huffed. “It was a long time ago. University. He saved my life.”

“Oh.”

“He doesn’t remember,” said Erica quickly. “I looked very different back then. Before the treatment.” She looked away. “Kinda hard to have epilepsy when you live in a world where everybody’s paranoid about people around them turning into zombies.” 

Derek didn’t know what to say.

“Don’t tell him,” said Erica softly. “I thought, when I saw him here… but then I’d always wonder if it’s just because of the way I look, now.”

“I won’t tell him,” promised Derek.

-++ CC ++-

The Pack was just finishing up dinner when Derek said, "One more thing."

Jackson paused in the act of standing up. Scott tilted his head. Derek had no idea what they were reading from his expression right then, but the whole team tensed.

"I want everyone to cut down to a half-dose," Derek ordered.

"What?" said Isaac.

It was Allison, unsurprisingly, who asked, "Is that safe?"

"Yes. It'll help," said Derek. 

"Oh look, he's gone back to the vague-explanations-that-only-make-sense-to-him thing, I thought we were past this," drawled Erica.

Derek scowled at her. "You know what the suppressants do to our senses. We’ll be here for a while, and I want everyone to be at their sharpest. We're on land, the usual space-life regulations don't apply."

"That still doesn't allow you to dictate your team's dosage intake, not without Doctor Deaton's approval," Allison countered.

"Deaton will give his approval," Derek said. 

Allison looked surprised by his surety. She glowered at him, but backed down.

-++ CC ++-

"You know perfectly well that you don't need my approval," said Deaton, the resident medical for military personnel, later. The man looked as harried as Derek had ever seen him, which was to say that his lab coat was a little rumpled but he otherwise appeared calm and collected. "As a Hale, you have special dispensation-"

"I don't want to use that," Derek said gruffly. "Especially if Allison hasn't made the connection."

"You have a habit of making things harder for yourself than they have to be," sighed Deaton. "Well, while you're here - I would recommend that you wait at least a week before telling the Pack to stop taking their dosage entirely. Physically, their bodies will acclimatize within a day, but psychologically, it would be best to give them time to adapt to the new sensory information."

Derek blinked. "How did you-?"

"It's the logical next step. And I even agree with the decision." Deaton gave him a small, wry smile. "As a medical professional, I've long believed that suppressants should only be a temporary measure, used while the subject has not yet learned to control their heightened aggression and new instincts. But it should be gradually replaced with training, both physical and mental." He looked up at Derek. "As an old friend of your mother's, I have to admit that I approve your decision, Alpha."

"Oh."

“On that note, how have you been handling the change?”

Deaton likely knew, to the day, when Derek stopped taking his suppressants. “No unusual side effects. It’s been a while since we’ve been on-planet long enough to justify it.”

“Wolves aren’t really equipped to be in space,” Deaton said drily.

-++ CC ++-

Scott let out a frustrated yell when he hit the floor for the fifth time. "Damn it, why do I suck at this?"

"It restores my faith in the universe that even though you're faster and stronger and non-asthmatic, your coordination's still crap," said Stiles cheerfully.

Derek shook his head. He was about to call for another round when Stiles asked, "What's with the blindfold?"

"Heightened senses," answered Derek.

"We have them, but having them is no good unless we're able to use them," clarified Isaac, rolling his eyes at Derek. "Most humans - assuming familiarity with all five senses and a person's neurological system falling within normal parameters - tend to strongly favor sight. Derek's training us to use our other senses."

"I think it's less about using the senses and more about being confident in our ability to use them," said Erica, frowning down at her exercise clothes as if thoroughly flooring Scott had messed them up. "Like, not just, 'oh, I think I can hear something over there'. It's gotta be, 'zombie, pretty fresh, approximately a hundred-and-twenty-pounds, approaching at a run'. "

"So, Scott is still thinking too much like a visuo-normative human?"

"Yup," said Isaac.

"Huh. Hey, when you do the throwing-stuff-at-the-trainee exercise again, can I chuck a few things? I've got pretty good aim."

Scott had clearly gotten his wind back at this point, which Derek suspected was Stiles' intention. Derek smirked. "You can do it now. He might as well practice dodging projectiles at the same time as dealing with an opponent."

The others laughed at Scott's audible groan. 

It wasn't until hours later that Derek realized Stiles had talked about 'humans' as if he understood that the Pack no longer belonged under that description.


	6. Chapter 6

"Hey, your watch is broken," said Stiles.

Derek was confused for a few minutes, until he remembered the watch he'd liberated from Laura's apartment and absently strapped onto his arm, squeezed in between the electronics-embedded glove and the wristguard. He nodded. "Yeah, it was like this when I found it at Laura's. She always liked collecting old things." He'd been meaning to get it fixed so that he had some functional excuse to keep it on his wrist. 

Stiles kept on staring at the watch. "So it hasn't moved at all?"

"No. The whole thing is dead."

Keen brown eyes met Derek's. "Then what's been making that ticking sound?"

-++ CC ++-

A somewhat unauthorized use of the Labs' scanning equipment and a consultation with a toymaker in the Market later, Derek and Stiles learned that the time-keeping mechanism inside the watch was still working, it was just no longer connected to the hands on the clockface.

"Not surprising, for something this old," said the toymaker. "If you want, I can open it up and try to replace the broken parts."

_That watch has been in the family for centuries!_

Derek breathe-in-breathe-out-settled the instinctive rush of protectiveness. "Thank you, but I think I'll leave it as it is. It's not like I've been using it to tell time."

-++ CC ++-

"Hey, I got your message, you said you had something to-" Stiles' face split into a grin when he caught sight of what Derek was leaning against. "You've finished it!"

"I have," said Derek, allowing himself to be a little smug. He stepped aside to let Stiles get a better look at his handiwork.

Aside from fixing up, and occasionally updating, the internal systems, Derek had thoroughly cleaned and polished every inch of the bike. The chrome handlebars and back panels gleamed, the imitation-leather seats looked supple to the touch, the stationary wheels glinted at the edges. 

"Such a beauty," Stiles murmured appreciatively. He was running his hands down the sleekly curving sides, and Derek couldn't look away.

"How do you feel about a short ride?" he asked.

"Oh, seriously, can we?" 

Stiles radiated joy and excitement like a small sun, actually clapping with glee when he saw that Derek had gotten him his own helmet. Derek simply attached a blast-proof casing over his headset. It was mostly for show; he was fairly confident that he'd be able to heal any injuries he'd get from an accident. Not that he was intending on being in one, with Stiles on board.

They walked the Razorbike out of the abandoned shed that Derek had been using as a garage. Once on the road, Derek swung his leg over, half-sitting with the bike tilted slightly to one side, while Stiles climbed on. The engine purred beautifully when Derek started it. He settled into the seat. Stiles wrapped his arms around Derek's waist, trusting. Derek took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the smell of the bike and of Stiles, and thought, _it's a pretty good day_.

Stiles whooped loudly as the Razorbike sped over the Barrier Circuit. Derek could see where the front wheel shone along the edge as they picked up speed, aware that the back wheel looked the same. The wheels, in motion, looked like they had sharp, gleaming edges; it was where the bike had gotten its name.

Planetary Guards and the occasional civilian stared at them as the bike roared past. Someone must have put out a notice, though, because after a few minutes, some of the Guards waved at them as they passed.

-++ CC ++-

"Oh man, that was _amazing_ ," laughed Stiles as Derek brought the Razorbike to a stop back inside his makeshift garage. His face, when he took off his helmet, was flushed, happy. "Seriously, the amazingest. I don't think my lungs have gotten that much fresh air in years. And did you see the faces on those Guards, the ones by Tower 1? So jealous, man, as if they don't already resent you for the cooler weapons and killer physique, your reputation's gonna _mmph_ -"

Stiles flailed a little when Derek, sliding off the seat, spun around and stopped the flow of words by covering Stiles' mouth with his own. Derek smirked against Stiles' lips; Stiles, feeling it, smacked him playfully, then slid his arms over Derek's shoulders. Derek licked at Stiles' lips; they gasped open, inviting. 

The kiss turned sloppy, dirty. Stiles' face was cold from the ride, but the inside of his mouth was scorching. The taste and smell of him was heady; Derek thought this was probably what drinking wine felt like to regular humans, a victual that warmed from the inside out.

They parted, needing to breathe properly, and Derek mouthed along Stiles' jaw, enjoying the little gasps Stiles made and the way Stiles' fingers were playing with the hair at Derek's nape. Stiles' skin flushed easily, beautifully, warming up under the work of Derek's tongue and teeth. And his _scent_ \- Derek growled, low in his throat, pushing his nose into the junction between Stiles' neck and shoulder. 

"Swing your other leg this way," he instructed. Stiles gave him a curious look, but obeyed, so that he was sitting with both legs on the same side, facing Derek. Derek lifted the bike with one hand and kicked at the lock behind the driver's footrest; there was a small hiss when the manual stand slid out on either side of the hind wheel.

"Dude, you can lift the bike with me sitting on it," Stiles said, eyes wide. "That is seriously hot."

Derek rolled his eyes, though a small part of him preened. He kissed Stiles again - purely just to keep him quiet, of course - and hummed in approval when Stiles parted his legs, pulling Derek in between them. One of Derek's hands came to rest on the small of Stiles' back, the other on Stiles' thigh. 

It was a little worrying, maybe, how easily Derek could get lost in just kissing Stiles, in exploring the different ways he could make Stiles' breath stutter, could draw an involuntary noise from Stiles' throat. Eventually, Derek remembered that he'd had a plan.

"Put - put this leg over on that side-" Derek instructed, or tried to. But Stiles seemed too focused on the kissing to listen - to be fair, Derek is very much distracted by the way Stiles kept nipping and sucking on Derek's lower lip. Derek eventually just moved Stiles into the position he wanted him. Stiles gasped when, for a few seconds, Derek took his entire weight. Derek gripped Stiles' leg by the thigh and placed it on the other side, so that Stiles was sitting on the bike backwards, and then he gently urged Stiles down, supporting him, until Stiles was lying on the bike, back flush against the seat. It was probably not very comfortable, and Stiles had nothing to hold on to for balance until Derek guided his hands to the handlebars slightly above his head. The entire time, though, Stiles was pliant, trusting, and Derek would be lying if he said that the way Stiles let himself be manhandled didn't add a new slick edge to the desire burning under his skin.

Once he thought that Stiles was in a stable position, Derek stepped back. His breath caught.

Stiles, pale and lean and disheveled, looked the very image of temptation, draped over the back of the bike. 

He looked uncertain, at first, but he must read something on Derek's face, because his lips - already slightly swollen from Derek's attentions - curved into a lazy smile, and the inviting look he directed at Derek made Derek's pants almost unbearably tight. Hand a little unsteady, Derek reached out and grabbed the collar of Stiles' Beacon uniform. The fastenings came undone easily under his fingers. Stiles twitched, probably wanting to help but knowing better than to let go of the handlebars. By the time the shirt was open all along the front, both of them were breathing hard from the anticipation; Derek swallowed thickly as he spread the cloth, baring Stiles' upper body. 

Next to the Razorbike's chrome and black, the smell of metal and plastic, Stiles' skin was vibrant, unmistakably alive. His chest rose and fell, the flush on his face spreading downwards as Derek watched. The air was thick with both their arousals. Derek felt like he was drowning.

Stiles' ragged, "Derek, _please_ ," let him know that he wasn't the only one.

"Fuck, Stiles," Derek breathed. He leaned over and placed a hand on Stiles' neck, sliding it down to his chest. Stiles' heartbeat was like thunder. "The things I want to do to you." 

He wanted to put his mouth all over Stiles' body, taste every inch of that skin. He wanted to slide his cock into Stiles' mouth, fuck his throat until his voice was but a rasp. Mark up Stiles' body, so that everybody who looked at him knew who he belonged to. Slick Stiles up and mount him, just like this, pound into him until he came from Derek's cock alone. Derek _wanted_.

Derek leaned over and pressed a quick, wet kiss to Stiles mouth, and told him all of this, in between licking stripes along Stiles' chest, abdomen.

"Damn it, Derek," Stiles cried out, when Derek's lips closed around a nipple. "I don't - _fuck_ \- don't care, just, _ah_ , fucking do something, _please_."

"So fucking gorgeous like this," murmured Derek, even as he complied and yanked down Stiles' pants, taking his shoes and socks along with it. Stiles slid along the seat a little when Derek took his feet off the hind footrests, unsteady, but seemed to trust Derek to keep him from falling off. Derek refused to think on it too hard, on what it meant. Seeing Stiles naked from the waist down was distracting enough. His cock was flushed dark with blood, hard and curving over towards his stomach. Derek's mouth watered just from looking at it.

Derek pressed his face against the soft skin low on Stiles' belly. He reached down and gently cupped Stiles' balls, his fingers catching on the pubic hair there. He bent down, ignoring the awkward angle, and lifted one of Stiles' legs over Derek's shoulder. The other thigh flexed, Stiles adjusting for balance. Like this, Stiles was spread open for Derek; Derek glanced up, and Stiles was staring raptly, eyes dilated until barely any pupil was visible, lips slightly parted and panting.

Stiles let out a garbled sound when Derek licked around the head of his cock, then trailed the tip of his tongue down its length, all the way to the root. But instead of going back up, Derek lowered his head further, nosing briefly at the perineum and feeling Stiles' foot kick the air over the shoulder. Derek raised himself up a little, leaned forward more. He gave himself a moment to look appreciatively over at Stiles, the way his body was on display, all for Derek; then Derek pressed his lips against the puckered skin of Stiles' hole, felt it twitch, and _licked_.

Derek's anticipatory grip on Stiles' hip was probably the only thing that kept Stiles from tumbling off the bike, because his body arched up at the first hot slide of Derek's tongue. 

"Derek!" Stiles yelped. "What are you- oh, oh, are you- _fuck_ , I can't- _oh gods_ , ah, please, _please_ -"

Derek wasn't sure what Stiles was begging for, and the way he was squirming seemed like he wasn't sure whether to pull away from Derek or push towards him, but when Derek backed off a little, Stiles curved the leg over Derek's shoulder and nudged his head back down. Derek chuckled, obligingly burying his face between Stiles' legs again. 

Teasing licks around the rim had Stiles swearing colorfully. Derek coaxed the ring of muscle into relaxing, alternating between long licks with his tongue flattened and a series of quick flicks with just the tip. He planted sucking kisses to the soft skin of Stiles' upper thighs, occasionally mouthing over his balls. Stiles' cries grew more incoherent the longer Derek worked his hole. He gave up trying to make words entirely when Derek curled his tongue and began pushing it into his hole, now thoroughly wet, fucking Stiles with short, shallow jabs.

When Derek licked up one finger and slid it in, tongue still lapping at the entrance, Stiles' body accepted the finger easily. Derek looked up; Stiles looked a wreck, eyes glazed over and face red, fingers twisting in their grip of the handlebars. Derek licked a second finger and added it. Stiles' body clenched around both fingers, hot and pulsing. 

Derek raised his head, ignoring the slight stiffness in his own muscles from holding the unusual position for so long, and finally put his mouth on Stiles' neglected cock. Stiles let out a sob of relief, hips rocking upward even though he knew better, as if he couldn't quite control his body anymore. Derek held the cockhead in his mouth for a few seconds, licking up the mess of precome that had built up, before sliding his mouth down, relaxing his throat as he took the entire, not inconsiderable length in. It'd been a while since he'd done this, and his throat tightened reflexively at the intrusion, causing Stiles to moan.

A pause, Derek savoring the tight heat where his fingers were buried inside Stiles' body, combined with the full feeling where his mouth and throat were stuffed with cock. Stiles was simply chanting his name at this point.

And then Derek was moving - he slowly slid his head up, until it was only the head of Stiles' cock in his mouth again, and pulled his fingers out at the same time, until on the tips were stretching the muscles around the rim. He went down, thrust his fingers in again. He didn't try to swallow Stiles down again, instead just taking what could comfortably fit in his mouth. Normally, he'd cover the remaining length with his hand, but he needed to keep one hand on Stiles' hip, pinning him to the bike. He bobbed his head, jaw slack and lips tight over the smooth, hot skin; below, Derek's fingers slid in and out of Stiles, fucking him to a matching rhythm.

Stiles didn't last much longer. He managed to give Derek a breathless, "Derek, I'm, I'm gonna-", hips pushing against Derek's hold on his hip, and then he was coming, thick and hot and pungent on Derek's tongue, his cries echoing through the abandoned shed. Derek drank him down, jabbing his fingers inside Stiles until Stiles was completely spent.

Derek let out a groan when he let Stiles' cock slip wetly out of his mouth. Stiles was staring at him numbly, looking shocked and disbelieving; he didn't seem capable of speech for several long seconds - which Derek was going to feel proud about later on, when he didn't feel like his cock was going to burst out of his pants on its own, it was so hard.

Stiles let out a whine when Derek pulled himself out. Derek let out a sigh of relief, and began stripping his cock, hard and fast, gazing down at a thoroughly debauched-looking Stiles, the taste of Stiles' come heavy in his mouth. 

"Yeah, yeah, Derek," urged Stiles. His voice was rough, a sheen of sweat on his skin. "You were so good, damn, you're _fantastic_ , you always know just how I want it. C'mon, _Derek_." He spread his thighs, canting his hips up, like a wanton offering, shameless. Derek cursed under his breath. "Mmm, I love your cock. Want it inside me all the time. Yeah, that's it, Derek. Derek, _give it to me_."

Derek's orgasm ripped through him, sooner than expected, as if commanded by the sound of Stiles' voice. Streaks of come landed on Stiles' chest, abdomen, spattered over Stiles' cock and its nest of hair. Stiles moaned. The image of Stiles lying there, flushed with post-orgasmic bliss and covered with Derek's spunk, and yet gazing up at Derek, big brown eyes dangerously soft and _adoring_ \- Derek didn't know how to handle it. He lowered Stiles' leg, tucked himself back into his pants. A part of him considered making some kind of excuse and running back to the facility. 

Instead, he went up the side of the bike to kiss Stiles. 

Stiles released the handlebars and clung to Derek's shoulders the moment Derek was close enough to reach. He returned Derek's kiss readily, his mouth soft, a trace of sweat. Derek helped him to sit up. Stiles reeked of sex and sweat and, most importantly, _Derek_. Shit, Derek wanted to have him again. Wanted to pull Stiles down to the cold concrete floor and work another orgasm out of him, cover him with another layer of Derek's come. Derek's body wouldn't be able to get it up for a little while yet, but by the gods, he _wanted_. 

He was, without a doubt, in trouble.

-++ CC ++-

"Kinda crowded in here," observed Isaac, looking around the gym.

"Seriously?" said Stiles, looking amused. "You know that there's normally not this many people in here at any given time, right? Kevin from Maintenance says that the number of people going to the gym has tripled since you guys started using the facilities regularly."

"Why don't you join us a bit, Stiles," said Erica, grinning at him from the treadmill. "Tighten up a muscle or two, improve your stamina."

"Hey, I haven't received any complaints about my stamina."

Derek tuned them out, focusing on his pull-ups. He finished the set, muscles pleasantly tired, and was debating between going for a run around the track or wandering over to the climbing wall, when Boyd caught his eye and nodded discreetly towards Stiles.

Stiles was talking to someone. A woman, a little older than him, and her scent was all interest and attraction. Stiles was smiling at her, but his scent was vaguely embarrassed, and he seemed to be trying not to look Derek's way.

"-look, I'm kind of seeing somebody?"

"You don't sound very sure. Hey, you can say no if you really don't want to, but you should stop holding out for Doctor Martin, she and that Spec guy look real cozy together. I just want to have a drink, talk a little bit-"

Derek growled under his breath. Before he could think about it, he stalked up to Stiles, and pressed a firm, heated kiss into his mouth. There was brief cessation in the murmur of conversation around them in the gym, the air sparking with lightning-lemon shock, and then a storm of whispering, and more than a few discreet clicks on tablets.

When Derek drew back, Stiles stared at him with wide brown eyes. His mouth hung open. Derek really shouldn't find that attractive, and yet he had to resist the urge to go in for a second kiss, to lick at the sweet flush on Stiles' pale skin. He was distantly aware of the woman scuttling off.

"I..." Stiles swallowed. Derek mentally patted himself on the back for making Stiles lost for words. "I thought you... you know. Didn't want people to know?"

Derek shook his head. He'd thought that the way Stiles had been acting when they were in public, like they were still only acquaintances, had been because Stiles preferred it that way. Derek leaned in, until his forehead was touching Stiles'. His hands had somehow come up to grip Stiles' arms, and he had to gentle his hold before he left bruises. "I won't fuck anyone I'm ashamed of," he said, perhaps a bit too forcefully.

It was Stiles who kissed him this time, slower and deeper. "Okay," he breathed.

-++ CC ++-

It was fairly easy to slip out without anybody in the Pack noticing. The Razorbike was still in the storage locker he’d stowed it in. He walked it over to Gate 1, the nearest gate to the facility. He expected the Guards to ask what he was doing, especially at such a late hour, but nobody challenged him. He suspected Overseer Morrell had anticipated him doing something like this and added the relevant authorizations to his profile. The gate opened at his tag and his passcode. He waited until he was several feet outside, keeping a cautious nose out for any wandering Deadeyes, before booting the Razorbike up and turning on the engine.

He had no clear idea of where he was heading. He just knew that he needed some time _away_ from the settlement, away from all the people depending on him to take care of them and to make the right decisions. 

The moon was bright overhead, the sky clear of clouds. The wind had a faint chill to it, the memory of snow to the far north. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been like this. The wolf moved with him, just under his skin; it liked the Razorbike, how it felt like a wild beast itself. The night was young, and pure, and called to him; he wanted to howl into the sky. 

He was a good distance away from the settlement when he stopped the bike, parked it next to a Great Millennial, and leaned against the enormous smooth trunk himself. He kept an ear out for zombies, but the night seemed unusually quiet. If he didn't breathe too hard, he could almost believe that he was in a place that had been spared the Infection, that the sounds of movement came only from insects, and he was the most dangerous creature out in the night.

That was when the broken watch stopped ticking.

Derek blinked and held it up, peering at it in the dark. The clockface had never moved, and there didn't seem to be any physical change-

The scent was subtle, almost too subtle for him to detect. He only felt a small burst of wind, like somebody whispering into his face, and he thought he could see miniscule purple flecks floating up from the broken watch. His nose went numb, and he had time to think, wolfsbane-

And, suddenly, Laura was standing in front of him.

Derek blinked at her. 

"Why the fish face, baby brother? I've been in your head for weeks."

“That was just - my subconscious, you're something my brain made up to appease my guilt.”

Laura chuckled, shaking her head in fond exasperation. “Stubborn to the last, huh? And, really, I would love to let you keep your peace of mind and your _rational explanations_. But, as always, time has run away from us.”

She was, suddenly, in front of him. He’d only blinked, and there she was. He could see the trees behind her. Her features were blurred, as if looking through a lens that was out of focus. She seemed to have as much substance as mist. But there was no pixilation, no small motes of light like there would be for a projected image.

And her scent. Chestnut and old honey and summertime dusk. Like velvet on the nose. Tinted by age, because a werewolf tended to remember family as the scent they imprinted on while still a cub. This was a distinctly older Laura. Older, even, then the last time he’d met her in person, when grief clouded both of them with old-mountain bleakness.

It was _real_.

“Listen, Derek,” she said quietly. And no matter what his eyes saw, his nose believed that it was her, now, right in front of him. “Nobody knows this. I died finding it out. You know why I came to this planet?”

“You were tracking Kate Argent,” said Derek.

“I was tracking a ship registered to Kate Argent,” said Laura. “And I found it. But I was careless, and stupid - I didn’t think about what might be waiting _inside_.”

He shivered. “You want me to look for it.”

“I’ll tell you where it is.” Laura leaned in. Before Derek could decide if he was willing to let - the hallucination - touch him, she sighed, an expulsion of air. Or not just air. He breathed in, instinctive,

_a route through the forest, taken at a run; long limbs speeding over rocks and bush; she wasn’t as fond of running as the rest of her kind, but they were built for it, steady strides eating up the miles; easy to avoid the Deadeyes, the stench of them contaminating the surrounding area like its own brand of infection; the full moon was high one night and she couldn’t help it, she found a sturdy overhang and let out a howl, and to her surprise saw bands of Deadeyes skittering through the forest, all moving away from her; the mountain loomed ahead; she followed the canyon that marked the start of the ranges in the north; found a path to the valley below, the way was tricky enough that she expected not even Deadeyes to find their way there; there were no Deadeyes, but the icy valley smelled of something worse, and naturally she had to follow it to its source-_

and just like that, he knew where to go, knew the route as well as if he’d made the journey himself.

He was barely able to muster the words. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

“Oh, little brother.” Her hand reached up to stroke his head. He felt nothing, not even a slight breeze, but her scent-presence was mingling with his. There was a rare chord of disconnect: his wolf couldn’t understand why he was mourning his sister, when she was right there in front of him. “I was your Alpha. It was my job to keep you safe. If I had my way, you’d be far from here, living a life that has nothing to do with revenge and death and pain.”

“You tried to make me,” said Derek.

“Even though I knew it’d be useless.” She leaned forward and planted a kiss on his brow. “Moonchased. Would that old sayings can remain only such.”

Derek frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You never paid much attention to the lore that our grandparents tried to teach us,” said Laura. “So you’ll have to learn on your own. But - there is one thing. You must have your Pack with you when you find Kate Argent's ship.”

“What? Why?” asked Derek.

But Laura was gone. In fact, the forest around him looked _normal_ , without the bright edges and haze brought by wolfsbane.

He sniffed the now-silent watch. It could only have been a tiny amount, but prepared correctly, even a sprinkle of powdered wolfsbane could be potent. There was no sign of there having been anyone else in the area. Derek took a deep breath and could pick out a couple of loner Deadeyes in the distance; he hadn’t noticed the absence of that stench while he was talking to Laura. 

Well, a hallucination of Laura. A wolfsbane-induced hallucination.

That’s all it was.

He turned to head back to the settlement. Just for a moment, he thought he heard a faint, _the wolf is stronger in a pack_ , but it was likely just the wind.

-++ CC ++-

"There's something I have to show you."

Derek waited until Stiles nodded, giving Derek his full attention. They were on the balcony on the tenth level, because being in Derek's room usually led to being distracted for a long while. 

Derek did it very carefully: just one hand, hidden from the security cameras by their bodies. 

Stiles' eyes got wider and wider as Derek's nails lengthened, sharpened, changed color. It been a long time since Derek had done this so deliberately slowly. He let Stiles touch them, make sure they were real, before shifting them back. Then he changed his eyes, letting the Alpha red glow out for a few seconds.

"So," Stiles said after a while, eyes still wide, "werewolves."

"Yes."

Derek hadn't been nervous. He _hadn't_. Stiles wasn't Kate. This wasn't just Derek's secret, but Scott's, and Derek was fairly sure there wasn't anything Stiles wouldn't do for Scott. But the old fear lurked, casting doubt from dark corners.

As predicted, Stiles exclaimed, "That's so _cool_!"

Derek chuckled, tried not to show the sheer relief he felt. "The rest of the Pack said they don't mind you knowing." Scott had confessed that he'd been on the verge of asking for the Pack's permission to tell Stiles as well. "It's not - a lot of Specs have mixed feelings about it."

"What do you mean?"

Derek picked at a blade of grass. "Survival rate for the Laikos Protocol is forty percent under ideal treatment conditions and a biologically sound subject."

"Yeah, I know that."

"Then think about what kind of person would be told those odds and still decide to take them."

-++ CC ++-

Laura had told him to bring the Pack along with him.

But he couldn't. Only Stiles knew he'd been looking for Laura. Of the team, ironically, only Allison knew his last name. Even if they put the pieces together, Derek would still get a sizable headstart. That was assuming they would want to go after him at all.

No. He was the last. Moonchased, bad-luck, fate-cursed. It was time to end it, one way or another. And he was leaving behind a young, promising Pack. Not as healthy or as stable as they could be, but they would get there, especially once he removed the ulcer that was his presence, stopped confusing the Alpha signals in the Pack dynamics. 

Few werewolves could hope for better legacies.

-++ CC ++-

Derek chucked the ID tag at Stiles. "You passed."

Stiles reflexively grabbed the tag before it could hit his face. "What?"

"This was a test. Finding Laura Hale. I wanted to see if you were as good at research and data recovery as Scott claimed you were." Derek forced himself look at Stiles directly. "Check your email. You should have received an offer from Command to sign on as Spec-CAG auxiliary to H-Cali-4. Think it over. It's all right if you refuse - but, this way, you get to be in the Specials without having to do the treatment."

Stiles' mouth opened and closed a few times, as if he couldn't figure out what to say. Finally, he managed, "This was... all a test? All of it?"

He could be asking about Laura. If Laura was real, if there had been a point to the searching aside from fulfilling some unseen criteria. 

But there was a note of betrayal, a growing acid-woodrot of hurt, that said he was asking about other things. The bruises on his hips in the shape of Derek's fingers. His sweat drying on Derek's skin.

"All of it," Derek confirmed. His pulse stuttered; but Stiles, at least, wouldn't be able to tell.

He left the room.

|| END OF PART ONE ||


	7. Chapter 7

|| PART TWO ||

> THEY are NOT zombies.  
>  _\- a grafitti message that appears on all Centuria Central Cities on the annual Universal Day Of Mourning, usually within hours of one another; the ~~artist(s)~~ perpetrators have never been determined._  
> 

[ CHAPTER SEVEN ]

He left in the middle of the night. Kept going until the sky lightened, beams from the sun straying between the enormous tree trunks. He forced himself to slow down, then, though he didn't feel particularly tired. Too restless for sleep, he covered a couple more miles at a slower pace. He finally bedded down at high noon, waking up refreshed as the sun dipped towards the horizon once more.

Before Cali, Derek couldn't remember the last time he'd seen the outside world without the sleepy-sweet fog of suppressants. Had he _ever_ been- but he remembered, flashes, of night runs battering his skin with wind-ice, the smell of pack strong and savage around him, the terrain jolting joyfully through his bones. Slivers of time that his pack stole. 

Even dogs must sometimes remember that they come from wolves, Grandpa Hale used to say.

The second night was much the same. He chased a couple of Trubells down for supper. His wolf wanted to eat them raw, but he built a fire, skinned and cooked them, skills first taught by his parents and relearned at Spec-CAL training. He had a bag slung over one shoulder, full of rations, but he didn't know how long the journey would take, and he preferred to spare the rations in case there were no other options for food later. 

He cleaned up his impromptu campsite and took off again. He kept himself in check, staying at a speed he could keep up for hours. The wolf was restless, and it took Derek a while to realize that the wolf was looking for its Pack, wondering why it was running alone.

And that was when Scott tackled him to the ground.

-++ CC ++-

"You're an ass," declared Scott. The rest of the Pack spilled into the area around them. Encircling them, Derek realized - in case Derek tried to escape.

"This is personal," said Derek, "And none of your business."

"You're our _Alpha_. That makes this the Pack's business," countered Scott. "You didn't even say anything. You just took off."

"I don't need your permission, Scott."

"Really? Because from what you've told Stiles, you have some kind of plan for me to be Alpha after you. I bet you haven't told him how someone becomes Alpha. Were you planning on coming back half-dead and calling me out to finish the job?"

"I'm not the one who bit you, I can't call you out that way-" A familiar rumbling sound caught Derek's attention. "Why is there a transport following you?"

"Allison and Stiles can't exactly keep up with us on foot," said Scott. "They're the ones who figured out that you weren't in Beacon anymore."

Derek scowled at Scott. "You hate my guts."

"I used to," admitted Scott. "I don't, anymore. And hating you is not the same as wanting you dead."

I wouldn't know, Derek almost said. Someone who'd said she loved him had done her very best to make him dead. Derek sighed. "I don't want you guys coming with me."

"Acknowledged. But we're following you anyway. Whatever happens to you affects the whole Pack, and that means we get to have a say."

-++ CC ++-

They travelled for the rest of the night, resting every few hours to do a headcount and give the transport an opportunity to catch up. No one else in the Pack spoke to Derek. No one else spoke, for that matter. It reminded Derek of their very first missions as a Pack, when everybody had been unsure of everybody else; he hadn't realized just how much warmth and camaraderie had built up between them until he missed it.

When the sky began to lighten in color, they stopped for the day-sleep, setting up camp in a quiet but familiar sequence of shared tasks. The transport rolled in approximately half an hour later.

The hatch of the transport popped open, and Stiles clambered out, grumbling, "How the _hell_ can you guys wear this everyday? I didn't realize that when they called it a skinsuit, they meant _stuck to your skin_. I think it's more stuck to me than my skin is." He looked at the silent Pack and blinked. "Um. Derek?"

Derek closed his mouth with an audible snap. But he couldn't quite tear his eyes away from the shiny material clinging to every curve and outline of Stiles' body. There was the vest, emphasizing the broadness of Stiles' shoulders and the muscles of his arms. And then, _dear suns_ , the holsters around Stiles' thighs, on either side of his hips, and the knife sheaths above his boots. 

The next thing he knew, Stiles was right in front of him, scent bright with curiosity, but also caramelizing to knowing interest. Stiles was still right next to the transport, backed up against the battered metallic side, which meant Derek had been the one who'd moved.

"Stiles," the name slipped out of Derek in a low tone. 

"See something you like, Alpha?" said Stiles innocently. He couldn't really pull off coy, but damn if the words didn't send a flush of heat through Derek. They stared at each other, a charge building in the air between them.

Then, "No, wait, I'm pissed off at you."

He was - Derek could smell it. But Stiles was relieved as well, and there was the familiar sweet-gold lust from Derek's proximity. Derek resisted the urge to bury his face in Stiles' neck.

"I'm sorry for leaving," mumbled Derek, "and for... the other things I said. They weren't true. I mean, this _is_ real. If that's what you want. I'm not very good with - anything. Like this." Derek huffed in frustration.

Stiles sighed. "It's okay, big guy, no need to strain something." He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against Derek's. "I forgive you, okay? Just... I don't know what I'm doing, either. What this is. And I hate that you just took off, that something could have happened and we wouldn't know where you were." Voice quieter, he added, "Scott's dad took off when he was little. His mom brought him up by herself."

"Oh."

"I don't know what Pack is supposed to mean. But these guys want it to mean family."

Derek looked down. "That's. That _is_ what it means. What it's supposed to mean."

"Then... talk to them. Tell them stuff. I know you're a man of few words and all, bu I think there's a lot in there," Stiles planted a soft kiss on Derek's forehead, "that's worth sharing, if you can.

Stiles moved off to inspect the Trubells roasting over the flames. Derek looked up - and saw Allison looking his way. He didn't know how to read the expression on her face, but there was a soft sort of shock in her eyes, and a sadness that she'd never trusted to show him before.

-++ CC ++-

_We are but visitors here_ , Derek couldn't help but be aware with every leaping bound he took through the wood. His wolf was a little uncomfortable, but it had the Pack at hand now, Stiles nearby; it would prefer a familiar forest, a hunting ground marked by their scents, but it had been making do with far less for years, so it was content.

Brush cracked underfoot. A soft breeze from the west, speaking of seas and saltwater. Running between the trees felt like the easiest thing in the world, as simple as breathing. 

Not far behind, Derek heard someone howling. Scott. Scott felt happy, free, Scott was running with his Pack and the rich forest ahead of them lay waiting, unclaimed by others. Before he could think about it, Derek had his own head thrown back; his howl joined Scott's, echoing and adding his own glee, supporting and powering the sound. Then came Boyd, Erica, Jackson and Isaac. 

Was this a Run? Derek had never gotten to participate in one, but he remembered how the adults always spoke of it with excitement, like it was a small instance of freedom, sorely needed in a world that viewed wild spaces and open sky as danger. 

Derek had howled before, he'd run through forests before; this was something else, something more. The sound that leapt out of their jaws seemed like a separate beast, running with them and over them and between them, linking the entire Pack together. It give strength to his legs, vibrated between the trees to give them the lay of the land, then sunk into the ground so that the planet itself seemed to be casting them forward on their way. Derek found that it worked better to not think too hard; his body knew when to dodge a patch of ground, which field was riddled with Trubell dens, where a stream offered a refreshing drink, when to bull through a narrow space between the enormous tree trunks because there was enough room for him and the other alternatives would take precious extra seconds. 

He realized his awareness of the Pack was sharpened as well; he knew exactly where each of them were in relation to himself, how well they were doing, if anybody was injured or sporting a weakness. He wondered if his Pack, in turn, had a better sense of him.

-++ CC ++-

Wolves were naturally wary of fire, and werewolves didn't particularly need them, yet somehow one came to life in the middle of their makeshift camp as soon as Stiles got his hands on some dry branches. Jackson looked hilariously conflicted between his reluctance to offer any semblance of praise or gratitude to Stiles, and his not-so-disguised relief at the extra warmth. Jackson always hated it when the Pack had to live rough. Derek found himself sharing a look with Scott, both of them trying to keep from chuckling.

"So," said Stiles, after they'd passed around the packets of active-duty rations. Everyone had gotten a little tired of Trubells, and it turned out that Stiles had packed a sizable quantity of the packets into the transport. "This is like camping! Except with more guns and running and the possibility of running into zombies at any moment."

"You never went camping," said Scott. 

"Well, no, Dad was always too busy, thank you for the reminder, Scott; but I've heard lots of people reminiscing about doing that when they were younger, before the ban came down."

"I've never been," said Derek with a shrug.

"My dad used to take my brother and I camping," said Isaac quietly.

Derek blinked. Isaac almost never talked about his family, especially his father, and Derek had picked up enough clues over the years to guess why. The only other time he'd heard about Isaac's brother was a brief mention that he was dead.

"My mom hated camping, but she and my dad took me on a picnic a few times," Erica piped up, before the pause reached an awkward length.

"We didn't have extra money for camping," said Boyd, "But there was a small garden at the top of our building, and I used to take my little brothers and sisters up there to eat our dinner, when Mom worked late."

They were all very distinctly not looking at Jackson. Derek thought he saw Stiles palming a small chunk of unlit firewood to throw at him. To Derek's surprise, Jackson muttered, "My mom and dad took me out every year when I was young, called it 'family bonding' time. There was this natural reserve they loved going to. I remember the geysers, and this clear, clean lake like a giant mirror. But after they told me I was adopted, I always refused to go." The crackling fire was reflected in Jackson's eyes. "When they died, I took their ashes and ran the bio-blockade. Scattered them near the base of the mountains, where there's a good view of the water."

There was a long quiet, then Isaac said, "Was that the mountain you had a holopic of and kept on your windowsill?"

Jackson looked surprised. "Oh, yeah, mom got it made for me the first time we went. I forgot I had that."

A look passed between Isaac and Jackson that Derek couldn't read. His wolf approved, though, of these connections and reconnections, despite the strange way humans went about it. Such things were fairly straightforward, for wolves.

-++ CC ++-

"So," said Stiles. "Your name is Derek Hale."

Derek looked away. 

He'd been waiting for Stiles to bring it up, and had expected Stiles to be angry with him for hiding the information. 

Instead, a warm hand came to rest on Derek’s back. “I know it doesn’t really help, like, _at all_ , but I’m sorry about what happened to your family. That was- I don’t think there’s really any words for how awful that was. I didn’t know there were any survivors, but I guess it makes sense that they’d keep that quiet.”

That _did_ get Derek to look at Stiles. “You know that it was - that somebody did it?” 

“Sabotage? Yeah.”

The media had spun the explosion as an accident. An old ship that was a proud family heirloom but inevitably riddled with small structural weaknesses that had accumulated over the years. Better for a family whose legacy had been built on creating security systems to fall prey to sentimentality than reveal that somebody had gotten past their private security. 

It had taken Derek a long time to gain the clearance to see those files. But now he knew: wolfsbane smoke in the air system, the systematic disabling of all the escape pods and emergency panic rooms, and an explosion hot enough to incinerate everything. There hadn’t even been much of the ship left, just fragments. 

The Hale family had been on their yearly reunion. Every single member had been on that ship. And the ship had been cruising along the outskirts of the Centuria Boundary, at the edge of colonized space, at least a day’s journey away from the nearest outpost. The better to be themselves, his father had always said. They didn’t have to worry about a well-meaning acquaintance or aspiring business dealer dropping by.

Even if the communication lines hadn’t been disabled, there wouldn’t have been anybody close enough to help.

“I should have been there.” It took Stiles’ hand sliding up to grip Derek’s shoulder for Derek to realize he’d said the words aloud.

“Don’t be stupid,” said Stiles, with surprising fervency. 

It was… nice, that Stiles wanted to spare his feelings. But Derek had been to too many mandatory counseling sessions over the years; he could hash out the conversations about survivor’s guilt backwards and forwards, down all possible routes. He hadn’t slipped like that in years, but Stiles seemed to have that kind of effect on him. Easiest would be to… reframe. “I meant that literally. Laura and I should have been there. The only reason we weren’t was because an accident in the Central City Three Spaceport delayed all the flights by a day.”

It remained something that Derek couldn’t wrap his head around. That, of all the people to escape, it had been him, whose fault it was to begin with. 

Laura had been so happy to be going home. 

(He’d forgotten that, actually, but now the gem of a memory came to the fore: Laura dragging him through the gift shops at the spaceport because she’d forgotten to buy a souvenir for Cousin Tim, teasing him for being a typical teenager because he’d tried to get out of going to the reunion.)

“Oh.” Stiles kept squeezing his shoulder. “That’s- Look, I’m the last person in the world to be giving talks on how we shouldn’t feel guilty about living when the people we love die, but I’m damn glad you didn’t die, okay. And I can guarantee that your family would have been glad, too.”

Derek gritted his teeth. His jaw ached from the strain of not saying anything.

-++ CC ++-

"I didn't get chosen to be in the Specs."

Stiles paused in the middle of ripping open his ration packet. "What?"

Scott glanced at Allison, who gave him an encouraging nod. "I said, I didn't get chosen."

"But." Stiles blinked. "You became one anyway?"

Scott glanced at the rest of the team, gaze lingering on Derek. Derek shrugged, clearly indicating to Scott, _it's your story._

"Well, you know how I was in the Planetary Guards first?

Stiles nodded.

Scott scuffed his boot against the stones around the firepit. "On my first mission, we were sent to Ikhos, to escort these refugees whose city had been abandoned to the Infected. Seems simple, right? Everything was going fine, we got a couple of loner Infected for the newbies like myself to get used to shooting. We stopped for the night, set up camp. I was walking the perimeter, you know, patrolling, when I accidentally dropped my inhaler. There was a bit of a slope, and I thought I saw it roll down, so I went after it. I had my gun, I could still see the camp, didn't think anything too bad could happen."

He paused. Stiles was sitting up, staring intently. Even the rest of the Pack, who were familiar with the story, were waiting anxiously for him to continue. "Next thing I know, I'm on the ground and my neck is _burning_ something crazy. It was silent for, like, a minute, and I thought, that's it, I'm going into conversion, Stiles is gonna be so pissed." Stiles chuckled. "And then this guy is leaning over me," Scott nodded towards Derek, "telling me I'll be all right. Not that it makes me feel better, because that's the kind of thing you tell people who are dying, right? Then, suddenly, I was being carried, and I passed out. When I woke up again, I was at Command Base."

As if following an unseen signal, all eyes swung over to Derek, gazes expectant. 

Derek cleared his throat. "The pack I was a part of at the time had this old Alpha - they told me he'd been a good soldier, once, but right when I joined, he'd just gotten the news that his family had been killed by the Infected when their town got overrun. At first, he seemed all right, but he gradually became... unstable."

"We were on a mission on Ikhos when he suddenly - we could tell when it happened, because his scent changed. Like he'd become rabid. He ran off. His second split the team in half, one half to go after him and the other to complete the mission. I was in the half that was chasing him. I pulled ahead of everybody else, because I was faster and had a better sense of smell. But before I could catch up to him, he must have run into Scott and bit him."

"I was worried that Scott was going to bleed out, and if I took him back to the Guards, they were going to shoot him for being Infected. So I pointed the others after the rabid Alpha and looked after Scott until we could get back to Base."

"At first, I couldn't figure out what was going on, what they were doing to me," said Scott. "Nobody would tell me anything. I got pissed, and then I started changing."

"That must have freaked you out," said Stiles sympathetically.

"Totally. Derek was the one who came in and explained about the virus used in the Laikos Protocol, how it can be transmitted by an Alpha who'd gone off their suppressants. They studied me a bit, because they'd never had something like that happen before even though they knew it was a theoretical possibility. I was actually worried that they'd keep me in the lab forever. They eventually declared me fit for training to be Spec-CAL." Scott spread his hands. “And that was that.”


	8. Chapter 8

Maybe days of hardly seeing any zombies made them lax about keeping an eye out, because approximately a week into the journey, Allison's voice suddenly came on in Derek's headset.

"We've got zombies and Stiles is outside the transport. I repeat, we've got zombies, and Stiles is outside the transport."

" _What the hell is he doing outside the transport?_ " roared Derek. He changed trajectory so quickly that Jackson nearly crashed into him. 

"My fault," interjected Stiles, sounding a little breathless. "Needed to piss. Saw a few loners on the scans but thought they were too far away to worry about."

Derek heard the rest of the Pack asking questions, turning around, but he ran ahead of them all, using his nose to locate Stiles through the dense forest.

He leapt up and over the transport - Allison was using the vehicle's guns on some of the zombies, but she didn't dare shoot too close to Stiles. 

Stiles, who'd been cornered against a particularly wide Great Millennial, a cluster of zombies closing in on him. He was armed, at least, but it was taking him at least two shots of his pistol to bring down one zombie, and that wasn't enough.

Years of control, restraint - a lifetime - buckled and crumpled under the surge of pure rage. Nothing was more important than getting to Stiles, than getting Stiles away from danger. Keeping Stiles _safe_. Stiles and his stupid mouth and stubbornness and inviting himself along even when it wasn't his fight. 

Derek had shown Stiles a small, controlled shift into his werewolf form. Stiles had never seen Derek fully shifted, had never witnessed a werewolf out on a kill.

It didn't matter. It didn't matter how Stiles would react to Derek, how Stiles might fear him after seeing what he could do, the damage he could wreak; nothing mattered, so long as Stiles was alive to do such things. 

He was tearing through the first Deadeye before he was even aware that his hands were no longer human. A roar burst out of his chest, the wolf joyous at finding itself unrestrained. 

A flare of worry - what if the wolf attacked Stiles? 

But the wolf knew Stiles, knew him as Pack and more-than-Pack, and his rage at the threat was a mirror of Derek's.

_Trust your wolf,_ Grandfather Hale had always said. 

Derek had known it, intellectually, but had never understood, not in the way he suddenly did now. The wolf would no more harm Stiles than Derek would, and Derek could feel the strength of that truth clearly, irrefutable; he and the wolf were the same being.

If the wolf could protect Stiles, Derek was more than willing to hand over the reins.

It took him a few moments to realize that his shift _wasn't stopping_.

He dropped forward on all fours. Dark fur sprouted along his arms, pushed up under his skinsuit. His face itched. His bones creaked as they stretched and slid into new positions. What was happening to him? A small whine of fear escaped, but fear for Stiles overwhelmed any concern he had for himself. He felt his spine bowing, let himself drop down to all fours. 

He vaulted over the cell of Deadeyes and landed, crouching, in the space between Stiles and the zombies. He surrendered to the stretch-push-melt of the shift: the structure of his face and skull changing, teeth lengthening, eyes glowing red. There was a heartbeat pounding in his ears, and it took him a moment to realize that it was Stiles'. He felt the pace of it speeding up a little. Stiles was afraid.

But Stiles was also glad that Derek was there. Derek didn't know how he could tell; scents were now not so much cues as a history as clear as a computer screen floating over things, with the extra decoration of moods and dominant thoughts when it came to sentient beings.

Two Deadeyes stumbled close. Derek let out a loud growl, teeth snapping.

And then, to his surprise, they backed off. They still stared blankly ahead, no less dead of gaze than always, but they'd stopped moving forward. 

There was too much for Derek to think about, especially when his fear for Stiles still burned like acid under his skin. "Stiles," he said. His voice came out deep, rumbling. Inhuman.

Stiles came closer. Derek expected hesitation, the smoky sourness of fear. Stiles hand came to rest on the back of Derek's neck, a warm, solid weight- and Stiles' heartbeat _calmed_. 

His fear lost most of its desperate edge. Derek's heart slowed to match Stiles'. He was dimly aware of his breathing changing matching Stiles' as well. 

Stiles wasn't afraid of him. 

"I don't know what supernatural mojo you just pulled there," said Stiles quietly, "but we should probably get out of here before they snap out of it. Damn, somehow it's even creepier to see them standing there without doing anything. Like Coma Zombie. At least the hungry, bloodthirsty mob thing was familiar, you know?"

Derek hesitantly nudged one of the Deadeyes. No response. Hoping Stiles was staying well back, Derek shouldered through the cell, forcing them to one side until there was a wide path right through. All the zombies just stumbled in whatever direction he pushed them. He didn't entirely trust their unnatural stillness, however, so he went to Stiles and crouched in front of him, in what he hoped was a sufficiently pointed way.

Stiles gaped at him. "Okay, just to be clear, so that you can't complain to me later about me not understanding you - you are, right at this moment, asking me to ride you, right? And I want to point out that I never thought I'd say that in a non-sexy context."

Derek just growled, deliberately nodding his head.

Stiles still hesitated, but he glanced up and seemed to remember that there was a crowd of zombies there in a bizarre stupor that neither of them knew would last. Stiles placed a hand on Derek's shoulder and gingerly swung his legs over Derek's back. It was more draping himself over Derek's back than climbing on. Derek waited only long enough for him to be seated firmly before growling, "Hang on," and bounding out from the cluster of yet unmoving zombies.

Derek followed the scent of the Pack to safety. He could sense the others' confusion and anxiety as if their hearts were inside his own chest. They didn't smell afraid, though. They still recognized him, they still knew him.

Stiles slid off his back. Instead of moving away, Stiles wrapped long, warm arms around Derek's neck.

"It's okay," said Stiles gently, voice coaxing. Derek felt Stiles' hand stroking his head, his neck. Stiles' breath was slow and even, calm, his heartbeat settling into its usual speed. The fear was fading. 

Shifting back was harder than Derek ever remembered it being. But then, he'd been able to shift since the time he'd learned to walk. The wolf was obstinate. The anger that Derek often used to control his shifts only seemed to make the wolf dig its heels in. Derek wracked his memories for some clue, because he was pretty sure he'd seen his grandmother shift into this form once but had then convinced himself that it was a dream. 

Unexpectedly, it was the memory of what finally helped Scott with his transformations that gave Derek the idea. That, and Stiles' hand, which hadn't paused in its stroking of his head. He could feel Stiles' heartbeat, steady now, and it was instinct to make himself match it. He took in a deep breath, took in Stiles' scent, familiar, and he could feel the wolf's grip easing. The wolf liked Stiles, which shouldn't be surprising because the wolf had just saved Stiles from the bad-smell-dead-not-rotting. The wolf thought that Stiles smelled of Pack, of home, and Derek wholeheartedly agreed. The synchronicity sparked a jolt of... _light_ , was the best word, an energy that seemed to light up every cell in Derek's body.

"Hey there," said Stiles, his smile obvious in his voice, and Derek realized that he was upright and human-shaped again. 

"Stiles," he said, not knowing if he meant it as a plea or a warning or a complaint. It was hard to care, when Stiles was whole and unharmed in front of him. 

"I thought you said you didn't know how to do that," Erica exclaimed accusingly, after they'd put a few miles between them and the zombies and unanimously decided to rest a little early. 

Stiles sent Derek a questioning look.

"It's... my Grandfather called it the Alpha form," Derek explained to Stiles. "The closest one of our kind can shift to a full wolf shape." To Erica, "Not every Alpha can do it. I've never been able to do it before."

"It looked really badass," said Scott, voice full of admiration. "And you looked... healthy. Not like that Alpha we met on Sky Six."

"What happened with those zombies?" asked Boyd. "They just... stopped attacking."

Derek had no answers for that one.

After dinner-slash-breakfast, Derek found it difficult to fall asleep. He couldn't tell if the wolf felt any different. Would he be able to shift into the Alpha form again? 

He remembered the moment that had triggered the shift back. His normal shift involved wrestling the wolf back while pushing his human aspect forward. It was a struggle, a fight for dominance, in keeping with the experience of being a werewolf, and Derek had always believed that his control lay in subduing the wolf. But the Alpha form - fighting had only made it harder to shift. It was only when he'd felt that spark, the moment when he and the wolf felt like the same being, that the shift had happened.

_The Old Ways always have more than one aspect, little brother. Division and union. Struggle and submission._

"You sound like Grandfather,” he whispered, as quiet as he could be.

_You think that you didn't pay attention to the things we were told when we were younger. But I think you remember more than you know._

-++ CC ++-

It was no surprise at all when, upon making camp the following night, Stiles asked, "And how did you become an Alpha, Derek?"

Derek hadn't even bothered opening his ration packet. He cleared his throat, toying with the sturdy plastic packaging. "There was a Pack that suddenly disappeared in the middle of a mission. Dropped off the grid without a warning. Command followed protocol and gave them a week, but when there was no contact, they sent our Pack to check things out. 

"Their mission was to retrieve some databanks from this outpost that had been overrun by the Infected. Seemed simple enough. The outpost was in a pretty remote location, though, this tiny valley that was inaccessible by air, so we had to hike in. Turns out, the Infected weren't the only things in that valley. Actually, the Infected are pretty small fry compared to the creature we ran into. It was like this ancient prehistoric beast. It could _breathe fire_. I'm pretty sure it'd been hibernating in that valley for decades, but the Infected had woken it up. Or maybe it woke up naturally.

It had basically wiped out the previous Pack. Our Pack scattered. Scott and I ran into these smaller tunnels along the sides of the valley, hoping that it was too big to come after us. Then we got separated when it started banging on the outside and set off a few cave-ins. I was trying to find another way out when I literally stumbled into the Alpha of the first Pack.

"He said a couple of them from his Pack had managed to hide out in the tunnels for a few days, but then they'd tried to make a run for it and all got burnt to a crisp. He was barely alive when I found him.

"The strange thing was, when he saw me, he _smiled_. Said he'd been waiting for me."

_I promised her I would,_ the Alpha had muttered. Derek had been able to hear his heart slowing. He must have been dying for days. _She said it was important._

"And then he asked me to kill him. Said his injuries wouldn't kill him for at least another day, and he was tired of being in pain. We both knew what it meant. He said that he wanted me to have it. In the end, I killed him. Scott found me soon after."

The look on Scott's face. It had been the first time, Derek thought, that Scott realized just what kind of world he'd been pulled, unwilling, into. Scott had known about how the Alpha status was passed, but he still thought like a human then, and what he'd seen was Derek standing over a newly-dead body, said body's blood literally on Derek's hands.

"That's... wow," said Stiles, blinking. "But, I don't understand. What does that have to do with becoming Alpha? Do you have to get an Alpha's blessing or something?"

Allison huffed, smiling humorlessly. "That's how it happens, Stiles. It is power and status gained through blood. Through _murder_."

Derek didn't bother disputing it. It was true.

"How does that work?" asked Stiles, frowning. "Is it a psychological thing? How does the virus know when you've killed an Alpha?"

Allison narrowed her eyes at him, looked between him and Derek. "Command didn't create werewolves. Werewolves have been around longer than the Specialized Combat Agents division. Longer than Command and Centuria. Do you know who set up the Spec-CA program? A Command General by the name of William Hale."

"He was my grandfather," said Derek. "He and his sister developed a method to turn somebody into a werewolf without requiring the traditional bite from an Alpha."

"It was a way of hiding your kind in plain sight," said Allison. "A scientific explanation that could be presented if anybody got curious about your strength or speed of healing. And it increased your numbers."

"Are you saying that your entire family were werewolves?" Stiles asked Derek.

"Not the entire family," said Derek. "Sometimes it skips. I had an uncle and a couple of cousins who weren't. But most of us were born werewolves, yes."

"Huh." Stiles sat back, expression thoughtful, likely trying to process all the new information he'd just been given.

Derek knew that it wouldn't be long before Stiles put together the rest of it. Sure enough, Stiles suddenly jerked up from his sleeping bag. "Hang on." Stiles turned to look at Derek, next to him. "That time, when you were explaining about Scott having the potential to be Alpha. I thought you meant he'll be, I don't know, promoted to Alpha."

"Born werewolves can inherit the Alpha status, but there's only one way for bitten werewolves to gain it," Derek said. He'd meant for his tone to be firm but dismissive, but the voice that came out of his mouth just sounded _tired_.

Stiles' fingers closed around Derek's forearm, tightened. Derek met Stiles' eyes. Stiles was a little higher than him like this, with Derek leaning back against a tree and Stiles sitting up straight. "You're planning for Scott to _kill_ you! When you said he'll be able to take a Pack of his own, you meant _your_ Pack."

"Which is also his Pack." Derek closed his hand over the Stiles' hand on his shoulder. "Stiles, this is just... forward planning. You know how dangerous our lives are. If something were to happen to me, there's someone ready to step in my place. In the past, an Alpha always had to worry about what would happen to his Pack if he dies. Now, at least I know the next Alpha will care about my Pack."

"I thought Boyd was your second-in-command!"

"The second does not always mean the successor. He knows, in any case."

“How can you be so calm about this?”

“I’m being _practical_.”

“ _Fuck_ you.”

Derek hesitated. Stiles’ voice was harsh with anger, but his scent-presence was more sadness and fear. There was also a hint of something else, like an old wound. 

"You talked about Scott having the, the _thing_ that makes him a natural Alpha, or whatever." Stiles gazed at him intently. "You don't think you have it, don't you?"

"It's not a matter of _thinking_ you have it," said Derek.

"That kind of answers my question, but I want to hear you say it." His foot nudged Derek in the ribs.

"Really, it isn't. I can't explain it to someone who's not... one of us. If you were one of us, I wouldn't have to explain, you'd just _know_." Derek sighed. "And fine, no, I don't have the _thing_. I was born and raised to be a beta. Not to lead, but to follow. My sister was the one who was meant to be Alpha."

"Wait, what does that mean, 'born to follow'? Dude, nothing wrong with preferring to follow rather than lead, I've got a lifelong subscription myself, but from what I've seen, you've done a pretty good job with the leading."

Derek looked away. "I haven't."

"Well, there's room for improvement, obviously." Stiles waved a hand. "But you care about your Pack, and you always try to do what you think is best for them - even having a plan in case you die-" and then Stiles halted, eyes widening, and Derek knew he wasn't going to like whatever revelation was going on behind those clever brown eyes.

A minute passed with Stiles just gaping at him. Eventually, Derek snapped an impatient, "Stiles, what?"

"You don't think you're good enough to be Alpha," Stiles breathed. The words were quiet, delicate, as if Stiles didn't trust the air to hold them. "You came out here without telling anyone. I thought you were running away, but… you came out here believing you’re going to die.”

"I'm not _planning_ my death, if that's what you're worried about," said Derek.

"No, but passive suicide won't make you any less dead."

"Nobody lives forever, Stiles."

Stiles flinched, but he clearly refused to be deterred. "And what about your Pack? Even if you’ve got Scott all set up to take over, they’ll still have to deal with losing you. What about the people who care about you?"

"I don't have anybody."

" _What about me?_ "

Derek stared. Stiles stared back. Nothing moved in the camp, and the ever-present sense of Pack seemed almost another world away.

It was Stiles who recovered first. Unfair advantage, Derek thought numbly, in dealing with awkward situations so very often. "I don't- just, forget I said anything.”

Stiles turned away, throwing himself down on his sleeping bag and giving his back to Derek. Derek reached out to him - but he didn't know what to say. He let his hand fall without making contact. Sleep took a long time to come.

-++ CC ++-

Woods and rich soil gave way to winds and sandy rock; the trees became smaller, fewer, the terrain shifting from forest to sparse near-desert. The weather became milder for a while, pleasantly cool, and then they got shot by icy winds as they left the protection of the trees. They had been getting higher and higher, gaining altitude in gradual but steady increments; now they came across deep cracks in the ground, like jagged breaks in dry bone, the full depth of which were hidden by darkness, and unsettled pebbles bounced down until they fell beyond hearing.

"Are you sure you know where you're going?" asked Jackson, for what seemed like the twentieth time that day. 

Derek didn't bother to answer. He'd followed the directions that he'd received from Laura, and so far everything had matched what she'd remembered, if it really was a transferred memory. 

"He's the only one who knows where we're going," Scott muttered.

"It might help if you tell us what you're looking for, Derek," came Stiles' weary voice from the transport. For all that Stiles didn't have to do the physical running that the rest of them did, piloting the transport for long stretches of time was exhausting in other ways. "Just, like, landmarks or signposts or something."

"I'm following my nose," said Derek distractedly. 

"Wait, you're tracking a scent?" asked Erica.

Derek shook his head. "No, I'm- it's more like using the distinctive scent of each place as a roadmap." He'd known to go this way because the... _directions_ if they could be called that, said to go through a copse of rocketspine trees that borders a small stream and come out on a plateau where the wind is fresh off the mountains ranges. 

"Don't scents change all the time?" asked Stiles.

It was Erica who answered, "Depends. Specific smells, yes, but there are a lot of background scents that can identify a place. Things that are pretty stationary, like trees and rocks, or predictable, like seasonal winds, are very useful for giving context. It also helps to understand how scents blend together. Like, I can smell those rocketspine trees from here, but it's faint. The smell might be stronger if I stood downwind of the trees. When we were taking the suppressants, my sense of smell was not as sensitive; I might not have been able to-"

"Watch out!" 

Boyd suddenly reached out and grabbed Erica, pulling her back. Derek froze, felt the rest of the Pack stopping right where they were as well. He looked over at Erica and saw what Boyd had spotted in time: a distinct, and likely fatal, absence of ground two feet in front of Erica. 

They had found the canyon.


	9. Chapter 9

"The transport's not going to be able to fit on that path," said Derek, nodding at the narrow ledge leading down the steep sides of the canyon. It was only wide enough to fit one person, and even then they would probably have to stick close to the wall. 

"Then we'll leave it here," said Stiles. "I don't think the zombies are going to steal it. Might be for the best, anyway; I was getting worried about having enough power cells for the trip back."

Derek was briefly tempted to suggest that Stiles stay behind, with one of the Pack to guard him, until he realized that it would probably be safer for Stiles to travel in the middle of a protective Pack, and undoubtedly Stiles will still find a way to go after them.

There was a self-satisfied air about Stiles after he finished tucking the transport against a nearby pile of rocks and hefted a substantial-looking backpack, as if he'd noted Derek's lack of objection and figured out the reasoning behind it.

They trudged, single file, down the narrow walkway. Derek couldn't tell if the convenient ledge had been carved into the rock or had occurred naturally. He suspected the latter; it wasn't especially stable, and the width varied as they descended. Twice Derek had to leap over a crumbled portion, carrying a length of rope across, which he tied on the far end while Isaac tied the end on the side that had the rest of the Pack. The werewolves used the rope and a series of tiny footholds on the cliff wall. When it was Stiles' turn, Derek returned to the other side, and with half-shifted feet gouged more footholds into the cliff wall for Stiles to use.

Eventually they hit the bottom. The air was chilly, windless, and it was far down enough that light from the sun didn't quite reach the valley floor. Ice crystals covered parts of the rock in delicate, glass-like layers. Derek imagined the valley forming initially out of tectonic movement, and then carved through by a river, and after the river died, residual dampness in the ground eventually froze over.

And if Derek had been worried about what to look for next, there was no question that they were, at least, on the right track - less than a mile from where the ledge dropped them off, there was an unmistakable crater on the uneven ground, fairly shallow, and a long trench where whatever had made the crater dragged heavily across the ground. They followed it, breaking out into a brisk jog.

"Damn," breathed Jackson. 

Something that Derek had initially thought was a bulky rock formation jutting out of the ground turned out to be a small ship, thoroughly dented and almost completely buried. He abruptly stopped before getting too close. The Pack stopped with him. Stiles, at full sprint, caught up to them while they stared.

"It looks pretty dead," said Jackson. "And old."

"There's a star-class beamer sticking into the ground, though, and those have only been around the last fifty years," said Boyd. "If there's any part of it that's still live, proximity sensors might give us a surprise."

"Perimeter," ordered Derek, "Eyeballs only. No one gets any closer to it than we are right now."

Derek picked his way over the rocks that had piled up on all sides of the ship. There wasn't much to see. Boyd had a point about it being a fairly modern ship, and despite the beamer, the shape of the partial wing Derek espied classed the ship as non-combatant.

"Uh, guys," called Erica, from atop a rock. "You're gonna want to see this."

-++ CC ++-

"I didn't know your family business had a bioweapons branch."

Allison's voice was an odd combination of anger and sadness. But her scent was overlaid with dread. "We don't." 

The half-exposed stylized crest emblazoned across one side of the ship was unmistakable, though.

Derek could hear Stiles' head turning, looking between all of them and wondering at the sudden uneasiness.

"Let's make camp for the night," decided Derek. Best not to push anything now; Allison usually needed time to mull things over. "Find a place that's a good distance away from the ship."

-++ CC ++-

"Why did you become a researcher?" Boyd asked Stiles that night, probably to break the weird tension in the Pack, which originated from the weird tension between Stiles and Derek.

"Well, when the dream of saving the world as a badass Command secret agent fell through," Stiles smiled, shrugging, "I had to look at my options. I did pretty well in school. And... you're gonna laugh, but, I still wanted to save the world. So I had this crazy thought - I could find the cure for the Infection!" Stiles laughed in a self-deprecating way. "Then I hit college and realized that there are a lot of people out there more capable than me. Don't worry, I've given up my dreams of glory and stars-wide adulation."

The tone was joking, but there was a very real sense of resignation behind the self-mockery that had Derek worried. Derek quirked an eyebrow. "You're out here, doing research. That doesn't seem very given up to me."

"I'm running around zombie-infested woods with a bunch of real-life werewolves," said Stiles pointedly.

Derek looked away.

Fortunately, Scott came to the rescue with, "Hey, maybe you can write a book and get famous that way!"

-++ CC ++-

Allison was quieter than usual the following morning. She just waited until they'd packed up their camp, then walked over to the ship.

The decision to not get too close the previous day had been a good one, because once they came within a few feet of the ship, Derek's ears picked up the low humming of awakened machinery. A small red light began to flash; it drew Derek's attention, and made him realize that there was a faint outline of a door underneath the light. The door was shut, likely sealed. It also had been partially buried, once.

Someone had dug it out, clearing a small area in front of the door.

Laura? Derek postponed his musings for later, because Allison was walking right up to the door and sliding her hand down the center of it in a straight line. The flashing light stopped. A yellow square glowed on the door at waist height - a scanning panel. Allison pressed her hand against it. It was replaced by the outline of a number pad. She typed in a passcode. Standard security locks. But then an emitter embedded somewhere above the door cast out laser scan-lights. A bright green line swept down Allison's face while she stood completely still. A circle appeared over her right eye, shrinking until it was scanning her iris. 

Derek wasn't aware of holding his breath, but he let out a strong gust of relief when the light above the door flashed an affirmative green. The seam around the door became more prominent. There was a hiss, seals breaking, and the door slid open to one side.

Allison stepped inside without hesitation, which made Derek clench his fist. He knew better than to say anything, though. He and Scott bounded over to her, reaching the door at almost the same time. 

That was when the smell hit him.

Derek had to bite his lips to keep from gagging, turning his head to one side, and even then it was close. Scott made a choking noise and stumbled back, arms wind-milling. The rest of the Pack hesitated where they were, except for Stiles, who slid down his rock-pile and grabbed the back panels of Scott's body armor, steadying him.

"Fuck," Stiles coughed, "I'd ask what that stink is, except I'm actually really, really okay with not knowing."

Derek shamelessly took a sniff in Stiles' direction. Stiles' scent grounded him, safe and familiar. He heard the sounds of movement from inside the ship and remembered that Allison was in there on her own.

And the shallow depression in front of the door that Derek was presently standing on must have been dug by somebody.

It might have been Laura. But even so, something had then killed Laura afterwards.

Derek forced himself to walk into the ship. It was dark inside, glass crunching underfoot. Allison must have found a light switch, because she was standing a long way inside, looking over a desk that was littered with papers - notes and files.

He'd just made the decision to wait for Scott to handle the talking when she said, "This is a bioship. There’s still a bit of power in it. It's dark because somebody smashed out all the light sources."

A chill ran up Derek's spine. 

He realized that the two of them were, for the time being, more or less alone.

"This ship is registered under your aunt, Kate Argent," he said.

"You brought us to this planet because you were looking for your sister," said Allison. 

Derek couldn't tell if her tone was accusatory or confused, and didn't dare take a deeper breath to catch her scent. But then he noticed that her hands were trembling, slightly, and she'd never once looked away from the contents of the desk. 

"What happened here?" he asked, more gently than he thought he'd be able to.

"Experiments," said Allison. "From I've seen, and factoring in the size of this ship, it had housed one main test subject, plus a one or two researchers. Stiles will probably understand these notes better than I can. Scott already said it, though - biological weapons. Or, at least, that’s what labs in bioships usually develop."

As if summoned, Scott's voice echoed down the dark ship. "Oh man, how can anyone breathe in this? Oh, oh damn, I don't want to know what that is. Ugh. Fuck this nose."

The rest of the Pack opted to stay outside. Derek made his escape not too long later, after a grueling but necessary circuit of whatever parts of the ship remained intact, making certain there wasn't anything living left in there. Well, nothing larger than the unnamable organisms swimming through various stains and spillages on every surface. Stiles and Allison remained inside to sort through the research material. Scott kept dashing outside every few minutes to take exaggerated gulps of fresh air.

Eventually, Scott convinced Stiles to pack up the files he wanted and examine them outside. Stiles emerged with a high stack of papers, most of which were liberally spattered with what, in the reduced daylight that reached the bottom of the valley, could only be dried blood. Stiles also threw a dark, palm-sized case in Boyd's direction.

"The ship's black box," said Stiles, "containing records of the ship's flight logs, system processes, coordinates, etc."

-++ CC ++-

"The ship crashed itself," announced Boyd, several hours later.

Night had fallen, and they'd set up camp a good distance from, but still within sight of, the buried bioship. 

Derek frowned. But Allison nodded. "Secondary self-destruct?" she asked.

Boyd nodded. "Yup. Primary self-destruct was meant to be an implosion out in space, but something went wrong, and the system switched to the secondary."

"When?" asked Derek.

Boyd consulted the tablet he'd connected to the black box, read out the date logged by the ship's computer.

There was a clatter of a canteen hitting the ground. Everybody turned to look at Allison. Her gaze cut straight to Derek's. "That's the day Kate's death was logged on Centuria Control."

"So this is her ship, and it must have been connected to the Centuria network if it wanted to be left alone in Centuria-controlled space. I have no idea what happened in there but I've got a really, really strong feeling that it wasn't exactly legal, so she built in a failsafe in the event of her death," surmised Stiles.

"Well," said a soft, silken voice. "Aren't you a clever one?"

-++ CC ++-

" _Uncle Peter_?" gasped Derek incredulously.

The man cocked his head to one side. "Well. There's a scent I haven't scented in a while. Your sister insisted that she was the last remaining, but I should have known. The two of you had always been quite inseparable." Peter cocked his head. "Until recently, of course." 

Derek narrowed his eyes. No, it was not just a trick of the lighting. "You're an Alpha." Realization hit him. "You were the one who killed Laura."

"In my defense, I had no control over myself at the time. I barely remember it. She came, unguarded, and whatever was left of me at that point knew that becoming an Alpha was the only way to heal." Peter stepped closer to the light, and he looked- healthy, uninjured. But his eyes were all wrong. Even his scent was subtly different from what Derek remembered. "Ah-ah, don't even try it, Scott the Scout." Derek saw Scott settling back down on his haunches; he'd likely thought to slip out while Peter was talking.

"What happened to you?" asked Derek. He shifted slightly, just enough to put himself between Peter and Stiles. 

Peter ignored him, those wrong-eyes wandered lazily over the Pack, stopping finally on Allison. "An Argent. How it must have incensed your family when my father found a way to legitimize the werewolf condition. We didn't even have to rely on illegal drug labs and the black market for the suppressants anymore."

"He was dying, you see." Peter circled the outer edge of their camp, slipping in and out of the light of the fire. "Gerard Argent. A hunter of the old blood, from an old family - but human enough to grab at any chance for survival. Turning into a werewolf would get rid of his cancer. But he knew that no Alpha would agree to give him the bite, and my father would never let him anywhere near the Laikos Protocol."

" _Oh gods_ ," breathed Stiles, "You were the one in that bioship. The main test subject. They - grabbed you? When they blew up the Hale fleet."

"I was in my own ship, minutes from docking, when they snuck into the sector. Tripped a few minor alarms. I went to find out what it was. Got caught in a stasis-net. They’d only planned to eliminate our family - they'd been trying to since time out of mind, and someone finally got hold of the coordinates for that year's Pack meet -" and Derek wasn't imagining the pointed look that Peter sent his way; Peter _knew_ , and the most frightening part was the hint of a dry smile, as if what Derek had allowed to happen was a childish mistake to be amused at, "- but Gerard took it as a sign that he was meant to duplicate my father's work to save himself, so they kept me."

There was a shocked silence.

"They're dead now, Uncle," said Derek, "Gerard and Kate Argent."

"Did you kill them?" Again, the dispassionate amusement. 

Derek swallowed. "Yes."

"Good." Peter's voice went quiet. "Good boy." For a moment, a deep sense of age took over his face, his scent, pain written too deep to ever be fully eased; a glimpse of what Peter must have been like when the bioship crashed. 

And then it was gone. The half-smiling, dead-eyed man remained. 

Their healing ability was deceptive that way, Derek thought. Short of death, they had the power to restore their bodies back to perfect working condition. Blood and meat and bones put back into place, exactly as they had been before; but, sometimes, the person wearing the body in the end would be a different person entirely from the one who had lived there before.

Peter's next move came without any warning. All Derek heard was a hiss, a blur, and suddenly the night smelled of fresh blood. 

Derek's heartbeat pounded louder than his own breathing.

Jackson made a choked sound, a full-body shiver - and then he toppled back, limbs jerking, deep claw puncture marks right on his chest. 

"Scatter!" Derek roared.

He had no idea what was going on. His mind was a blank. Shock gripped the Pack. But their training held, and they obeyed Derek, sprinting in different directions. Derek forced himself to move fractionally slower. Stiles and Allison would not stand a chance against Peter one-on-one. Derek had to make sure Peter was focused on him.

Indeed, Peter appeared to have picked Derek as his next target. Killing Derek would take out the biggest threat and critically disorient the Pack at the same time.

Derek sprinted away, shifting even as he moved. Peter followed. Peter was shockingly fast, faster than even feral werewolves. Derek bounded over the uneven ground, crushing delicate layers of ice crystals, and expected to feel sharp claws on his back at any moment. Instead, Peter was springing from rock to rock, getting close enough to nip at Derek's heels and backing off again.

Like he was toying with Derek.

Or herding him.

_There's a trap there!_

Startled, Derek twisted his body to the side even as his foot came down on the patch of smoother rocks. A metal spike shot out of the ground; it would have impaled him right through if he'd stood on that spot properly. However, the last minute dodge caused him to lose his balance; he had to go into a full-body roll, then scramble away to avoid Peter's swinging claw.

He had no idea where he was. The steep valley was still shadowed under full daylight; at night, even his werewolf eyesight struggled with the small amount of star and moonlight that reached the valley floor.

Derek sprang up onto a rock but, instead of continuing over it, executed a backflip. His fist managed to land a glancing blow to Peter's shoulder. Peter swiped back at him almost lazily. Claws came so close to Derek's face that the air moved by their passage tickled his stubble.

_He's got a minor weakness in his left calf; if you're going to kick him, aim there._

Derek dropped to a crouch and kicked out hard, his foot connecting squarely with Peter's left calf. Peter let out a pained grunt. He narrowed his eyes in lieu of retaliating; Derek sprung back, anyway, keeping several feet between them. 

"That was a specifically directed attack. How did you know to aim there?" asked Peter. "You're more of a brawler when you fight; your sister was the observant one, the strategizer."

"What are you doing, Uncle?" Derek demanded. He knew that, if he reached out, he'd be able to feel if Jackson was- so he didn't. "What do you want?"

"I remember when you were born, you know. The first time Aunt Elizabeth laid eyes on you, she said, "This one is Moonchased; may the fates give him strength." We never paid attention to their so-called omens and dream-tales, but evidently they weren't far off the mark."

Derek took a deep breath. Peter didn't smell feral or insane. 

"I'm quite sane," said Peter. "Mostly. I'm surprised, myself. You have no idea what they did to me. They had me for, what, ten years? Can you imagine the kind of things they 'tested' on me?" He smirked. "Well, maybe you can. Gerard Argent only came into the ship twice, at the beginning and near the end, but his daughter Kate... She was very _hands-on_ with the project. And she liked to talk about you. Well, she never said your name, but she made it easy to figure it out."

Right, so Peter wanted to punish him. Fair enough. "Let my Pack go. They have nothing to do with any of this."

"True," conceded Peter. "Your sister protected you to the end, you know? She made me believe that you were dead." He brought up his hand, as if admiring the blood all over his claws and fingers. Blood from Derek's Pack. "You think I want to punish you. I did, once, but that was a thousand needles ago. Wolfsbane has such fascinating effects on us. Doctor 22 was particularly fond of the purple flowers. On me, and then on himself. And he liked to talk when under the influence."

"He was immune to the bite, by the way. Showed me his scars, told me he'd killed the Alpha who'd made them. I liked him; he always forgot to do up all the restraints. He thought being immune made him invincible." Peter smirked. "Well, it turned out that whatever he had, just made him unable to shift. But it made him vulnerable to other things. The old blood was already there, dormant; one just had to have the patience call it out. And, nephew mine, I definitely had the patience."

"So - no, I don't want to punish you. I just need you out of the way."

Like before, Derek had no warning: Peter was already moving before he'd finished talking. Pain erupted in Derek's chest. He heard things snapping. An icy sharpness was boring into him. He couldn't breathe. He wanted to think that he was struggling, fighting, but he suspected he was just dying. 

The world faded, until even the glow of red eyes winked out.


	10. Chapter 10

"Come on, Derek, you always promised that you'd be tougher than me one day. Time to prove it. Up, up, your pups need you, your Stiles needs you. You have to see this through-"

Derek shivered. _I don't want to lose you._

There was a long moment of quiet. Derek felt trapped between conflicting hopes. Then, "baby brother, is that what's been bothering you all this time?"

 _Please. Don't leave me alone._ Because what did it matter, anyway? Derek had been hearing his dead sister's voice in his head for months, ever since he arrived on Cali and went off the suppressants.

"You really never believed any of the things we were taught as pups, did you?" There was a faint sense of warmth. He could, if he wanted, believe that she was touching his face. "Wolves are never alone. The Pack lives on as long as a part of it survives. You've never been alone. But especially not now. You have your own Pack, and through them, through you, the rest of us live on."

_I don't know what to do._

"Well, admitting that is a step in the right direction." She chuckled, exactly the way she used to when she found something funny that she knew he would be annoyed by. “Did you think all of you are here by accident?”

_Laura._

He could feel her fading. The words came slower, now, as if she was getting further away.

"Let the past go, little brother. You've built yourself a future, a new family - live for them, and _let us go_."

-++ CC ++-

Derek gasped awake, jerking upright and dislodging two sets of hands. Scott and Isaac. He could see Stiles hovering anxiously over them. The chilly night wind made him shiver. He looked down. No wonder - his upper body was barely covered by the ruin that was his skinsuit.

"Jackson?" asked Derek.

The looks on their faces made his stomach drop, but then Erica's voice drifted over, "He's still alive. Just barely. But he's not healing. We think Peter Hale put something in the wound, or maybe coated his claws."

Derek remembered Peter talking about different kinds of wolfsbane. Still, Jackson was alive. "Everyone else?"

"They're good. Only you and Jackson got hurt," said Scott.

"What happened?"

"We went after you guys when it became clear that Peter was after you. But the two of you moved so fast." Scott shook his head. "By the time we reached you, Peter was tearing your chest open. He seemed surprised to see us attacking him. He dropped you and ran off."

"Tell me we're not going to go hunting after him,” said Stiles. He hesitantly dropped down to kneel beside Derek. Derek considered resisting, but, fuck it – he rested his head against Stiles’ shoulder, breathing deep. "He just took two of you out without breaking a sweat."

"Imagine what he can do to regular humans, then," said Allison.

"Fuck. Okay, what about we grab a fighter ship and just bomb this valley?"

"He's not here anymore," said Derek. His head was growing clearer by the second, helped along by Stiles’ presence, and he did not like what he found. He rubbed a hand over his face, grimaced when he realized he was covered in dried blood. At least it was his own. "He was talking about people who were immune."

"Yeah, we heard some of what he was saying, especially at the end," said Isaac.

" _He can influence people who are immune_ ," Derek reiterated.

"That's what it sounded like- oh. Oh no." Stiles' eyes widened.

"What?" asked Scott.

" _Lydia_."

"Fuck," breathed Erica.

"All the sightings of a large, wild animal," said Derek, "I'm sure that was him. Lydia remembers being snatched from the group. She wasn't Infected because she wasn't bitten by one of the Infected."

"You think he's heading back to Beacon," said Stiles.

"I _know_ he is."

Derek met Stiles' gaze. And then found himself very reluctant to look away.

Boyd cleared his throat. "What about Jackson?"

That snapped Derek out of... whatever it was he and Stiles were doing. He moved to stand, and abruptly fell on his ass again. 

"Need a little help?" asked Boyd drily.

Derek held up a hand. "Just get me to him."

-++ CC ++-

Jackson was cold, his heartbeat and breathing sluggish. The others had removed all the armor and clothing from his upper body. He'd bled a great deal, according to Isaac, the deep wounds slow to close. Derek, at least, had had the advantage of being an Alpha himself. 

He looked up. They were in luck - one of Cali's three moons was in its full phase.

Derek's parents had brought them to Earthworld just the once, to experience the full moon on their kind's native territory. He remembered the shock of it, how strong the wolf had been. He'd barely kept control of his shift; halting it entirely had felt impossible. The moons of other worlds didn't have anywhere near the same effect. 

And yet, a part of the wolf was always aware of the cycles, always knew that the moon was _important_.

Derek reached into his bag and pulled out his grandfather's wooden box, full of his sister's wolfsbane. He felt the others backing away when he opened it. "Lighter," he requested, holding his hand out until somebody gave him one. He crushed the wolfsbane, set it on fire, and spread it over Jackson's wounds.

Jackson yelped in pain. 

It would be more effective to use the exact same kind of wolfsbane that Peter had, but there was no way of finding out what that was short of asking Peter. 

"Come back," he said. Growled, really. He wasn’t surprised to find that his throat and hands weren't entirely human anymore - a reaction to the wolfsbane. "I am your Alpha, and I am calling you back." He'd seen his grandfather do something like this a few times. There had been a lot more words. It had felt like a ceremony. 

A whine escaped him. There was so much Derek didn't _know_.

A faint breeze stirred over the back of his head, and he caught the scent of velvet.

_Turn away from the skyless plain._

Derek closed his eyes. "Turn away from the skyless plain." 

_Your Pack has need of you, still._

"Your Pack has need of you, still."

Derek laid his shifted hand not on the collection of scars from needles and tubes on Jackson's neck, left by the Laikos treatments, but on the unmarked skin on his side.

The rest of the words rose out of memory.

"The Hunt is calling. There is no way back, for Man. There is no way back, for Wolf. But Guardian cannot see those who both-faced be; the Hunt is calling."

Jackson shuddered, head shaking from side-to-side. 

Derek lowered his head. Whispered, "Lydia's in danger."

Jackson's eyes snapped open, glowing blue. A long howl ripped out from him, though his lungs shouldn't have had air enough to sustain it; the sound of it was old, the song ancient, and it echoed through the dark valley, lonely, mourning the forgotten past of a distant world.

-++ CC ++-

"So, werewolves," said Stiles, a few hours later, as the team trudged along the narrow path out of the valley and back up to the transport. "You've been around for a long time. You've got, like, a culture and traditions and everything."

Derek blinked at him. He was not as steady on his feet as he liked, but he'd refused Boyd's offer of help. Jackson was far worse off; he was stumbling more than walking, carefully guided by Isaac and Erica, and he didn't seem entirely back with them yet. Derek was healing with every step, anyway. "Was that supposed to be a question?"

"More like a prompt? It's just, there's all this _history_ behind it, seems like, and you've never talked about it. The others were just as clueless as I was. Except for Allison, who apparently comes from a family that has it in for your family. And even she admits that what she knows about werewolves is, for obvious reasons, second-hand and probably a bit biased."

"The Argents are an old family of hunters. They hunt supernatural creatures, including werewolves."

"I gathered that. Just. I think it would really help if you shared a bit about your family. Whatever you're comfortable with."

"Why?"

Stiles scrubbed a hand over his head in frustration. He glanced ahead and behind them. Derek got a sense that Stiles would have preferred to have this conversation where the others couldn't hear. Which, considering the extent of werewolf hearing, would have been impractical. "Because everything your Pack knows about being a werewolf is tied to being a soldier. With killing things."

"That's what we are."

"That's not all you are."

In a blink, Derek had spun around and pressed a shifted claw to the soft skin of Stiles' neck, a twitch away from his jugular. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," said Stiles, meeting Derek's eyes defiantly. 

A beat passed. Two.

Boyd shouldered past Stiles. Derek jerked his hand back, heart kicking up at the tiny line of red on Stiles' neck. Stiles just glared after Boyd.

"Can you guys stop with the eyesex until we're out of here?" complained Scott from the rear of the line.

-++ CC ++-

Wolves had a different view of the world than men. 

What Derek wanted to explain to Stiles was: werewolves lived in a borderland, a blending of two very different places. The wolf's memories and Long-Song-Old struggling to fit into human constructs; the human's language roughly approximating the multiple, complicated layers of a wolf's experiences. 

The mythology of some cultures painted them as being untrustworthy, because they could change appearance and possessed dual natures.

_You've been running from your birthright long enough, little brother._

They were bright on his awareness, constellations that he knew well and had a part in making. Scott, the Quick, the Kind-Hearted. Isaac, Easer of Hurts. Boyd the Loyal, the Strong-Cunning. Erica, Bright Death, Killing-Grace. Even Allison's presence registered, Hunter-Beloved, Hope-Of-Justice. He was Alpha, and they were his. 

There were vague fragments in his head, stories - from the foggy recesses of memory, told in the voice of Grandfather Hale - of Alphas who were cruel and controlling, moulding their Pack to their will until the Pack seemed neither wolf nor human, but mere imitations of the Alpha; and Alphas on the other end of the spectrum, who did not care about their Pack, leaving them to squabble with each other and make trouble with humans, bringing out the worst of both wolf and human.

Derek had never expected to be Alpha, and had only ever known to be himself.


	11. Chapter 11

"But what does he want with Lydia?" asked Jackson. He still looked a little wan, even though he'd spent half the day riding in the transport with Stiles. 

"No idea," said Derek. "But she's a high-ranking researcher in the Labs. She has access to all sorts of things."

"I still want to know what you did to call Jackson back," said Isaac. "It felt like, you know, when we take pain away, but much more intense. And you were using a lot of power, but it didn't seem to be going anywhere."

The thing was, Derek did remember, now, bits and pieces from when he was much younger.

"It's from a legend. Grandfather Hale told it all the time after his sister Elizabeth died." Derek frowned, tried to remember the words his grandfather had used. "Since the very beginning, Man has looked for a way to cheat Death. There were many reasons: to live forever, to bring back lost loved ones, to gain knowledge from the dead. But all their efforts failed; once Death claimed them, the dead remained out of the reach of the living."

"Then, long ago, Man became allies with an old enemy, the Wolf. Wolves believe that their dead don't depart from the world entirely, but remain in the Pack, though in a dream-place far removed from the Hunt, which was what they called the world of sky and moon and prey."

"One day, the two tribes came up with an idea. They took together a child of Man and a child of Wolf and sacrificed them to the Sun-God, then stitched together their bodies until they looked as one creature. This angered the God, for She was the Mother of Life, and the young ones had died in pain. She punished the two tribes, and hid the younglings from Death."

"But that had been part of the plan. For the child awoke as one child, not two. The Sun, unsure of what this portended, gave the child to her sister, the Moon. For the Moon, unlike the Sun, changed shape often. The Moon watched over the child, and taught it to change between the shape of Man and the shape of Wolf."

Derek paused. "That was the first werewolf, of course. There's a bunch of other stories here, like the Moon getting angry and forcing the First to change every time she showed her full face. But I'll skip to the end."

"The First eventually died, having lived longer than either Man or Wolf, leaving behind a large family. And then, a curious thing happened - Death came, and the First followed Her out of this world. But something seemed strange, and, on a whim, the First began going back towards the Hunt. Death did not stop, did not bar the way or chase after the First."

"The ritual, you see, had worked as the two tribes intended. Death knew the face of Man, and knew the face of Wolf, but Death could not clearly see this new creature that was both and neither."

"Some stories say that the First, being old and tired, continued to follow Death, and passed from the Hunt until the Hunt called again. Other stories end with the First slipping back into the Hunt, an old shadow keeping the Moon company and watching over the Packs."

There was a long silence.

"That was... kind of amazing," said Stiles.

Derek shifted uneasily under the bright, wide-eyed stares of his Pack. "It's an old story. To explain, I guess, why werewolves are so hard to kill. The idea is that death isn't quite as permanent for werewolves as it is for other living things. I've even heard of an Alpha who somehow got himself resurrected, with the help of the Earthworld full moon and a lot of preparation beforehand. As long as there's someone to anchor them, a werewolf with the right kind of motivation, and sheer willpower, can find their way back, in one form or another." Like Jackson, fearing for Lydia. 

Or a dead sister, still watching over her brother.

-++ CC ++-

Derek really should not have been surprised, though he still was, when Stiles grabbed his hand and pulled him away from the camp, pointedly not looking at the others. At least they didn’t go far enough to make Derek worried; he could still see the light of the fire. Of course, that meant they were still well within the range of werewolf hearing, but from the way Stiles shoved him against a Great Millennial and dropped down to his knees, Stiles didn’t particularly care.

The bottom half of Derek’s skinsuit was undone and peeled down without finesse. The tight material, trapped around his thighs, stuck Derek’s legs together, but Stiles seemed concerned with only Derek’s cock, already semi-hard. 

“I thought you were going to die, you bastard,” said Stiles, before he opened his mouth and took Derek in like he didn’t care about his gag reflex. Derek yelped, digging fingers into the tree behind him – or, no longer fingers, from the sound of the bark cracking. 

Stiles usually took his time with things, but now he seemed bent on getting Derek to come as quickly as possible. Understandable, given the possibility of zombies showing up at any moment, but Derek suspected that wasn’t the only reason. Stiles sucked and licked and bobbed his head with a vengeance, going to town on Derek’s cock, fingers reaching behind to tug lightly on Derek’s balls. 

“Stiles, I’m gonna come,” whispered Derek, because at least one of them was still aware that the Pack could hear what they were doing. Derek had tried to keep his cursing and panting as quiet as possible, but Stiles, if anything, seemed even louder, the wet workings of his mouth sounding obscene and little moans from his throat like he was gorging on something delicious.

The fingers clamped down on Derek’s hips squeezed briefly, giving permission. Derek curled a hand around the back of Stiles head. Stiles looked up, eyes dilated and lips stretched wide around Derek’s not inconsiderable girth. Their gazes locked. Derek moaned Stiles’ name, shuddered, and came. Stiles drank him down, which made Derek shudder more.

When his cock slipped free from Stiles’ mouth, Derek pulled Stiles up to standing. Opened the trousers of Stiles’ skinsuit just enough to take Stiles’ cock into his hand.

Stiles took Derek’s lips in a biting kiss. “You’re not allowed to die on me,” he breathed into Derek’s mouth. “You’re not.”

Derek jerked Stiles off quickly. Stiles leaned in, resting some of his weight on Derek and the tree at Derek’s back. Arousal was rich on his skin, as always, but Derek also detected fear; Stiles was clutching at Derek’s shoulders like he was afraid of what would happen if he let go.

“Okay,” Derek whispered, tightening his grip and giving a twist around the head that he knew Stiles liked. Stiles pressed their lips together, tongue pushing into to tangle with Derek’s tongue. 

“Okay,” Derek repeated. Stiles gasped, hips jerking forward. The scent of come hit Derek’s nose, rose into the cool night air. 

“Okay,” said Stiles.

-++ CC ++-

They were a couple of days away from Beacon when Derek heard his headset beeping in his bag. He slowed down a little, took it out and put it on.

"Yeah?"

"So I turned the comm channels on a few minutes ago," said Stiles, "and you're not going to like this."

There was a beep, and then Derek swore as a loud, high-pitched siren wailed into his ears. It took him a second to register the robotic words being repeated over the siren:

"B-CON IS IN FULL EVAC. PROCEED TO CENTRAL FACILITY. B-CON IS IN FULL EVAC. PROCEED TO CENTRAL FACILITY."

Scott nearly plowed right into Derek when Derek abruptly halted. Derek absently steadied him, swearing loudly and calling the rest of the Pack in.

-++ CC ++-

Sirens blared throughout the settlement. The air was thick with fear, uncertainty. There was also a not inconsiderable amount of gunpowder and beam residue.

 _The Infected have breached the Barrier,_ an automated message announced on repeat over the public announcement system.

Nobody gave them a second look when the transport rolled up the road. To be fair, most of the bodies they saw were that of the zombie variety. Stiles cursed as they knocked into debris of various sizes. Boyd twitched, next to Derek, likely wanting to take over the controls himself. The Pack had piled into the transport once they were a few miles out of the Barrier. 

There had been no troops at the Barrier. The eerie thing was that the Barrier looked perfect intact. Derek had envisaged piles of zombie dead allowing a few enterprising Deadeyes to climb over the wall. But the Barrier appeared the same as always - except there was no humming of the energy shield, and all the gates stood open.

A makeshift barricade had been set up near the central facility. The buildings and base grounds were crammed with people. The facility itself was going into full lockdown mode. Derek looked up and saw a handful of ships hovering, waiting their turn to land and take up passengers. They all bore the Centuria logo. 

A thought occurred to him. "They're going to evacuate the facility first," he said. "They're Centuria ships. Their first priority would be the scientists and their research. The civilians are low-priority. They won't be evacuated for a while. There's barely enough ships just for the facility personnel."

"Shit, shit, you're right," said Stiles, as the team burst into a healthy round of swearing. 

They found the Overseer, the Chief of Security, and various department heads in the ground floor of the main building, trying to organize the camp into some sort of order.

"Ah, Alpha Derek," said Overseer Morrell, when she caught sight of him. "I trust your mission was successful?"

Derek paused. He could hear Stiles' heart stuttering guiltily. Which was strange, because he could barely hear his own breathing between the noise of the ships and distant gunfire and semi-frightened refugees. "More or less."

He hadn't given any kind of report or notice about his departure. Hadn't even thought about it. But Stiles must have come up with something; he'd even managed to borrow a transport.

It occurred to Derek that, maybe, he should be more wary of Stiles than he was.

"Well, at least there's one piece of good news this week," said Morrell, smiling in a way that suggested she knew whatever cover Stiles had concocted was not real. "The researchers have almost all been evacuated. I believe, in a Red-E situation, that control over your unit's objectives reverts back to Command."

"We'll be staying here until the civilians can be evacuated, Overseer," said Derek.

Planetary Guard Captain Finstock gave Derek a surprised look, before saying, "We will as well, Overseer. All the units have volunteered to remain behind and help the civilians as best as we can."

"You gentleman realize that it might be a while before Centuria can send the evac-ships?" said the Overseer.

"Yes, Madam," Derek and Captain Finstock said in unison.

"Very well. Then I commend you for your dedication to duty. I hope the three of us will meet again."

-++ CC ++-

Derek sent Isaac, Boyd, and Erica out with Finstock to help the Planetary Guards defend the barricades. He expected to have to hunt down Lydia, so he was startled to find her waiting for them in the barracks. One look at her face told him all he needed to know.

"Hey, Lyds, it's okay," said Stiles, shoving past Derek. Derek was surprised to see him dragging Jackson along, who Stiles practically shoved at Lydia. "It's not your fault, whatever you think-"

"I _know_ it's not," Lydia snarled, latching on to Jackson and burying her face on his shoulder. "I'd never- but I couldn't stop it. At first, I thought I was dreaming, and then-"

"Shh, it's okay," said Jackson. He was staring, wide-eyed, at Stiles, but instinctively brought his arms up to hold Lydia. 

"What's going on?" whispered Scott, looking utterly bewildered.

"Lydia disengaged the energy shield protecting the Barrier, then opened all the gates," said Derek. "Well, it was Peter, but he did it through Lydia."

" _Who the fuck is Peter?_ " cried Lydia. "And where did all of you go? You were just gone," she punched Jackson on the chest, right on the still-healing wound, making him grunt in pain, "and nobody knew anything, you could have stopped me-"

"Lydia, Lydia," said Stiles. "You need to calm down and breathe. We'll, we'll explain everything, but it's kind of a really long story, so you need to calm down."

"Derek."

Allison's voice snapped Derek's attention away from the scene. "What?"

She pulled on a chain around her neck, drawing out a necklace from underneath her skinsuit and holding up the pendant. "There might be something in this that can help us figure out what Peter's doing."

Derek stared at her for a second. And then at the pendant. The Argent family crest. "The Bestiary?" he asked, eyebrows hopping up in realization.

"Yeah. Come with me to a computer."

-++ CC ++-

Allison opened a window on one of the computer terminals that sat beside each bunk bed - Allison's own, from the smell of it, which was to say that there was plenty of Scott as well. She held the crest up to the floating screen. A password box popped up. She entered her password.

Then Derek was looking at page after scanned page of an old book. 

"There's nothing about zombies," said Allison, answering the first question that popped into Derek's head. "Trust me, every hunter family has gone through every page of their Bestiary to find some reference to zombies, but there's nothing. There are some creatures that can rise from the dead, or take over once a person's body was dead, but they're not _contagious_. Nothing on the scale of the Infection has ever been seen before."

"Go to the section on werewolves," said Derek.

The rest of the Pack kept drifting in and out of the room, particularly Scott, who kept staring between Derek and Allison as if he couldn't understand this reality where the two of them were willingly interacting. Allison opened the Bestiary on multiple windows, including secondary windows with translations for the oldest sections, and floated a few over to Derek, so that they could both go through the text.

When Stiles, Lydia, and Jackson finally came in, Stiles bounced eagerly and exclaimed, "research, research!" and tried to read over Derek's shoulder.

Most of the text on werewolves, naturally, were on the oldest pages. And in Ancient Latin. 

"Allison," said Stiles, "is there a part that mentions the term 'moonchased'?"

Allison frowned and tried to skim over the translation windows. To Derek's surprise, it was Lydia who pointed to one of the pages - the original scan, not a translation.

"Moonchased," read Lydia. "To be blessed by fate; portentious."

"Interesting definition of 'blessed'," said Stiles.

"The Old Ways aren't _kind_ ," said Derek somberly.

-++ CC ++-

Two hours later, Derek sent Scott and Jackson out to relieve Isaac and Erica. They were no closer to figuring out what Peter was up to.

Allison sat back, clearly frustrated. "He might believe that he doesn't want to punish you, but he was going for your heart."

Derek blinked. She had a point. He nodded.

"Wait, what does that mean?" said Stiles. 

"Symbolism, of a kind," explained Derek tiredly. "A slash across the neck would have been a cleaner kill. The heart takes more effort, requires closer proximity. Stopping the heart suggests intimacy, something personal in the kill."

A frown appeared on Stiles’ face. Derek felt Stiles drift closer, felt a hand touching his elbow and sliding down to find his fingers. Derek didn’t look away from the computer window in front of him, but he tangled their fingers together and kept them there.

-++ CC ++-

"Jackson's body rejected the Serum."

Stiles' head whipped around to stare at him. But it was Lydia who said, "What?"

"It was fine, at first," said Derek. "I wasn't there in the beginning, but I've seen the footage, read the reports. One minute, they were pretty sure he was going to be fine, and then the next... have you ever seen what happens when the subject has a negative reaction?"

Stiles and Lydia shook their heads. They shouldn't, those files were some of the most closely guarded of Command's dirty laundry, but Derek was learning not to underestimate either of them.

"It's not pretty," he said. "There's no warning, just as there's no way to tell if any given person will survive the treatment. The body just starts... shutting down. Minor loss of memory at first, which the subject doesn't usually pick up on because they're basically confined to a set of rooms until the one-month period is up. Then convulsions, organ failure, hallucinations. Jackson started excreting this black goo. I've read that, at the beginning of the program, they tried to kill the subjects once the negative symptoms begin, but the physical enhancements caused by the Serum have set in at this point, and nothing short of incinerating the observation suite with the subject in it could kill the subject. So now they just wait for the subject to die."

Which had turned out to be lucky for Jackson, because it meant he was still alive when Derek and his Pack rolled back into Command Base 5. Scott and, unexpectedly, Isaac, had ganged up on Derek, asking him to help Jackson. 

The Pack had walked out of that plus one pain-in-the-ass new member, but, on the bright side, at least Scott and Isaac had settled the mild antagonism they'd had going. 

Stiles swallowed audibly. Lydia looked pale, her scent-presence feverish with pain and anger, probably at Jackson for not telling her about this himself.

"So how is he alive, then?" asked Stiles.

Derek leaned back, resting his head against the wall. "I asked for some time alone with him. The medics had already filed him as a lost cause, they were just waiting for him to die. Boyd hacked into the computers, looped the footage to make it look like I was just sitting there with him the entire time. I talked to him for a little while, made sure he was still in there somewhere. And then... I administered a second dose. In a manner of speaking."

"And that worked?" Lydia asked incredulously.

"He's not dead, is he?" Derek pointed out.

Stiles was just staring at him. Derek could practically see the thoughts turning over in his head.

"You bit him," Stiles finally said, eyes widening. "That's how you did it. The proper bite, from you."

Derek had no idea why he was telling them. He felt exhausted, but his mind wouldn't stop thinking. His thoughts kept coming back to the bite, to the process of becoming a werewolf, as if he was missing something.

-++ CC ++-

“Fuck,” gasped Stiles, eyes screwed shut. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this.”

Derek knew the feeling. As it was, he couldn’t take his eyes off Stiles. Stiles, naked, a sheen of sweat on his pale skin, straddling Derek’s lap. Taking Derek’s cock slowly, torturously, chest rising and falling with each breath, clenching and unclenching in a way that sorely tested Derek’s determination to not thrust up. 

They were in his room, with its illusion of privacy from the rest of the world. Derek was as naked as Stiles, flat on his back on the bed. 

Once Stiles was fully seated, Derek buried inside him to the hilt, Derek pulled Stiles down and kissed those slack, wet lips. Even the slight movement sent sparks of pleasure of along Derek’s cock. 

Stiles caught his hands and pressed them into the bed on either side of Derek’s head. A hold that Derek could easily break; Stiles’ eyes dilated further when he saw that Derek allowed it. 

Stiles began to move, raising himself up and sliding back down. Derek gasped at the feeling of his cock moving in and out of that tight, tight heat. When Stiles’ pace picked up, Derek couldn’t help it, began thrusting upwards in time with Stiles’ movements, until the rhythmic slap of skin on skin was loud in the small room.

“Oh gods, Derek,” moaned Stiles. “You feel so good. I can’t. Fucking _fuck_ me.”

“Yeah,” gasped Derek. He felt drugged by the pleasure coursing through him, building up in his core. “C’mon, Stiles.”

Stiles’ leg slipped, rhythm faltering. Derek instinctively moved to grasp Stiles by the hips. The movement spread Stiles’ thighs further apart. He willingly let Derek take over, just bouncing slightly when Derek’s hips jerked up. Derek felt almost feverish, all the heat coming from where his body was joined to Stiles’. He planted his feet on the bed and bent his legs to give himself more leverage.

It was too easy for Derek to injure Stiles, Derek knew; even now, Derek suspected he was thrusting harder than he should. But Stiles didn’t seem to mind, from the encouraging noises he was making.

“That’s it,” Stiles hissed, “Give it to me. Want it so bad. So good, so fucking good, Derek. Want you. Oh gods.”

Derek slammed up into Stiles, at an angle that had Stiles throwing his head back and _keening_. Derek couldn’t tear his eyes away from the long, vulnerable stretch of Stiles’ neck. And there was Stiles’ body, ripe with lust and open to him, taking Derek again and again like he couldn’t get enough. 

Orgasm ripped through Derek like a vicious burst of fire. He pounded into Stiles, muscles burning from the exertion. He could feel himself coming inside Stiles, filling up the condom; it felt like it would never end. Stiles shouted, his entire body shuddering; his come painted Derek’s stomach and chest.

A little later, the both of them lying tangled together and still feeling a little dazed, Derek whispered, “I’m gonna make sure you’re safe.”

“Do you know how sick I am of hearing that?” said Stiles, chuckling bitterly. “My whole life, man.” He sighed. Kissed Derek hard. “I love you, too.”

-++ CC ++-

Derek went to take his turn at the barricades. For some reason, there wasn't a lot of zombie activity inside the settlement. They shot at any loners who came close. Normally the zombies would be rushing the base, drawn by the smell of so much fresh meat, but they were keeping away. It was making the Planetary Guards nervous, too. Derek had the sinking suspicion that Peter had something to do with it.

When Derek returned to the dorm they’d been using as a meeting room, Stiles had the research material from the bioship spread out on the floor around him. Derek wrinkled his nose from the smell. Stiles was muttering under his breath about “three’s a pattern,” whatever that meant.

"Okay, fine, zombies don't like wolfsbane, maybe they are supernatural creatures," Allison was saying to Lydia. "But there's nothing about them in the Bestiary." 

"Well, how old is that thing, anyway?" asked Stiles, poking it at a ragged-edged notepad. "I mean, the original book, not the digital file. Several hundred years, at least, if not a thousand? Has anyone been updating it? Not exactly surprising if a new kind of creature of the night came into being in the meantime."

"We're talking about myths and folklore, Stiles, they don't exactly evolve," Lydia snapped.

"Everything evolves," said a voice from the door. Doctor Deaton smiled enigmatically at all of them. "As much as we try to pretend that they don't. When people say, 'humanity spreads across the stars', they think they're only talking about people, as if we are contained, apart, from the world around us and from each other. Each person carries their own little world with them, ideas and experiences and expectations that all define the way we interact with the world around us. Sometimes we literally carry pieces of our world with us, be it in our blood or our possessions. So when 'humanity' spread across the stars, we moved more than just our physical bodies." Deaton smiled enigmatically at them all. "Think of it this way - what is more intrinsically _human_ than fear? And why shouldn't our fears change as we change? The werewolf who stalked the night suddenly became the soldier able to face an unwinnable foe."

-++ CC ++-

"Oh. Oh gods."

Everybody looked at Stiles. 

Deaton had wandered off. "Aren't you supposed to be on the ships?" Derek had demanded. 

"A lot of the townspeople need medical attention," was all Deaton had said.

"I'm seriously, seriously hoping I'm wrong. But." Stiles rearranged the notes in front of him, following some sort of order that only he understood. "Okay, here's a weird story. Gerard Argent is looking for a cure to his cancer. He's desperate enough that he wants to become a werewolf just to survive. None of the usual ways are available to him, but he knows that somebody has managed to bottle the werewolf-making juice, so he knows it's possible, and maybe he can get his own scientists to duplicate the process."

"The Protocol is more than just injecting stuff in a bottle," protested Derek. "My grandfather managed it because he understood our condition, knew about... cultural associations."

"Yes, yes, there's magic involved," said Stiles, waving a hand dismissively. "I bet all those observation rooms are built to very specific requirements, and the treatment is only done on a certain days, and there are a bunch of additional 'vitamins' administered to the subject. I've been reading the Bestiary. That's not- actually, it _is_ part of the point, but I'm getting to that."

Derek just gaped at Stiles.

"So, a werewolf, Peter, is captured alive. Gerard thinks he can figure out how werewolves are made by experimenting on Peter. He and his daughter made a side-project out of it. They produced a lot of results on the first year, but nothing truly promising came out of it." Stiles paused. "Gerard eventually ordered the ship destroyed. Kate intervened. I assume the project and the ship were given over to her."

"What does that have to do with the zombies?"

Stiles held up a finger. "This is going to sound crazy."

Derek cocked his head expectantly. 

"What if they're not zombies?" said Stiles.

"Not the first time we've heard that," said Allison. "People have been claiming that they're not zombies ever since the first wave of Infection."

"Stiles loves conspiracy theories, in case you guys didn't know," piped in Scott.

"Yeah, yeah, but this is something I haven't seen anyone suggest before. Or, at least, not beyond a random side-comment. I think. Maybe because nobody thought the supernatural element is already real."

"Get to the point, Stiles."

"What if these are not space-age zombies but are, instead, a supernatural creature that's already existed for a long time? Something that _the people in this room_ are familiar with. Except in a corrupted, experiment-went-horribly-wrong-plus-contagious form."

"Wait. What do you mean?" asked Lydia.

"We kinda just assumed that, because they're not in the Bestiary, the zombies must be a new thing, right?" said Stiles. "But new species don't just materialize out of a vacuum. What if, yes, the zombies are new, but they came from something that is very, very old?" Stiles met Derek's gaze, and suddenly Derek knew.

"Such as?" said Lydia, rubbing a hand tiredly over her eyes.

It was Derek who answered, "Werewolves."


	12. Chapter 12

There was a chorus of " _What?_ "

Stiles held up a stained piece of paper and read from it. "'Most promising thus far is W34-ED, a virus causing increased speed, strength, aggression, heightened sense of smell and hearing, perfectly mimicking the initial stages of change from human to werewolf, including alterations to skeletal and neurological structures.' They developed it far enough to test on humans. Three, to be precise. All of them died within minutes." Stiles smiled without humor. "And by sheer, absolutely ridiculous coincidence, they were running low on fuel that day, because Gerard and Kate were still squabbling over the project and the money hadn't come in yet. They didn't want to fire up the incinerators and use up fuel. But they happened to be in an occupied system, near a planet. So guess what they did?"

"They dumped the bodies," Isaac said.

"Sky Six," said Derek, numb with shock. The planet with the busiest space-port, with ships travelling to every colonized world in Centuria. Also one of the first to be declared Level One.

-++ CC ++-

The next time Derek took a turn at the barricades, Peter was there.

Derek smelled him first, and glared hotly at him for a minute before one of the Guards beside him yelled, "Hey, you, what're you doing out there?"

"Oh, nothing," said Peter. He'd acquired a new shirt and slacks, likely from someone's house. "Just hanging out with some friends." He looked at Derek. "You're looking better than when we last met, nephew."

"What do you want?" Derek growled, not bothering to raise his voice.

"Vengeance, humans turned into walking corpses, dinner with good company," said Peter. He cocked his head, smiling his creepy smile. "A plague of death such as humanity has never seen before."

"You're crazy."

"I'm not _completely_ crazy. Case in point - I'll agree to leave you alone if you and your Pack leave me alone. You are family, after all."

"No. Even if I believed you, which I don't."

Peter shrugged. "Suit yourself." He waved, almost casually, and a whole cell of zombies burst out of the building behind him. Shouts of alarm ran down the barricade. Derek managed to take down three with his shotgun, but then the Deadeyes were climbing over the barricade. The Guards stepped back, tried to keep enough distance to use their guns. The zombies were faster. And they were-

They were infecting, Derek realized, not feeding. Guards went down with a single, bloody bite, and usually got up again a minute later.

He could hear Guards from other parts of the base running towards them. Derek fended off grasping, clawed hands, forced himself to look at the zombie in the eyes. It always made his blood run cold, that look of emptiness in something that was still imitating the movements of the living. Maybe a part of Derek had always suspected a kinship.

Just as suddenly, the zombies stopped. Peter let out a short howl, sharp and commanding, and the cell shuffled back over the barricade. There were bodies on the ground, but a depressing number of the retreating zombies were wearing Planetary Guard uniforms.

-++ CC ++-

"Peter is controlling the zombies," Derek told his team. News of the attack was making its way through the base. "I think Stiles had the right idea. About zombies being werewolves but... made wrong."

He thought about Coma Zombie. Had Peter been planning to use it, knowing the researchers would bring it into the Lab to study it, until Lydia and her immunity came along? And those zombies that had been attacking Stiles and suddenly stopped – had Peter helped Derek’s Pack get to the valley?

"I've been reading the Bestiary," said Stiles, "And there's a lot of mystical stuff involved in werewolf lore. I don't know how much of it is accurate, since it's technically coming from the opposing team, but there's a lot of emphasis on the power of the Alpha and the bond within a Pack. I think - well, I think the zombies are what you get if you take a werewolf and remove the magical stuff, take away the protection of a Pack and 'a place in the Hunt', whatever that means."

"Awareness," said Derek. "Of the self and of others." Which made sense, as the zombies certainly had neither of those. "It's also part of the reason why only Alphas are able to give the Bite; the traditional thought was that only Alphas have the wisdom to decide who would be a good addition to the Pack." Without it, all the zombies possessed the ability to spread the virus.

"Magic is but science to the uninformed," muttered Lydia. "Fine, fine, as long as it works, we can figure out _how_ it works later."

"Aside from the biological stuff, what's a werewolf's strongest instinct?" asked Stiles.

"To protect the Pack," said Derek promptly.

"I'm not asking _you_ , I'm asking _them_."

Erica looked confused. "To protect the Pack," she echoed.

"I think you're saying that because Derek believes that. What if the Alpha ordered you to hurt someone in the Pack? Never mind whether or not you'd do it - would you feel compelled to?"

"A Beta's strongest instinct is to obey their Alpha," Boyd rumbled quietly. 

"What does this have to do with," began Scott, then his eyes became very round. "Oh. Peter is their Alpha."

"He is blood of their blood," said Derek grimly. 

"Maybe that was something that couldn't be taken away." Stiles sighed. "And all Peter cares about is killing humans, or converting them."

“The Centuria evac ships,” said Boyd grimly. “All he needs is to get his Infected on one of them. Hell, maybe he plans to just stroll into one, they don’t exactly check IDs. He moves faster than anything I’ve ever seen, I’m pretty sure he’ll be able to dodge the skin tests.”

They all looked at each other.

"Derek," said Allison.

"No, I agree, he has to be stopped," sighed Derek.

"But how do we do that?" asked Erica. "Like Boyd said, the guy is fucking _fast_. I don't think the whole Pack can bring him down, and that's without counting the zombie army."

"So we slow him down," suggested Scott.

"That's... a great idea," said Stiles, eyes widening. 

"Wolfsbane?" said Derek. Stiles nodded.

"Wolfsbane."

-++ CC ++-

“We need to get into the Labs,” announced Stiles.

“But how?” said Lydia. “They were locked down when the Overseer and Doctor Harris left. And also, you're not supposed to know about the stock of wolfsbane there.”

Stiles sighed heavily, and exchanged a look with Scott. Finally, Stiles said, “Okay. Okay. Come on.”

It probably said something that none of them questioned Stiles when he led the way across the facility into the main building. Lydia stared after him doubtfully, but didn’t say anything. Derek found himself instinctively covering Stiles’ flank, with Scott mirroring him on Stiles’ other side, and the rest of the Pack arranging themselves protectively around the humans. 

The facility was eerily dark, though still surprisingly neat. There were only a couple of overturned chairs and the occasional pile of glass shards on the floor. It was easy to think that the place had only shut down for the night, and would come alive again in the morning.

They took the emergency stairs up. On Level 4, they came out and encountered the massive, sealed lock-down doors of the Labs. Derek silently gave props to whoever had designed the thing. He doubted even Jackson’s heavy-duty beam canon could have made a dent on it. It would be much more productive to fire at the walls from the outside, but knowing how protective Centuria was of its findings and intellectual properties, the external walls of the Labs were likely reinforced.

“Right,” said Stiles. He walked to the center of the doors, where there was a flat scanning panel. He pressed his palm against it.

The panel blinked green, and the green light faded except for lines in a grid; except, unlike regular security panels where the grid was essentially a number pad, this one had twice as many squares, filling up the whole panel. There was another brief flash of green, which left each square key with a symbol in the middle of it, but the symbols faded after one second, leaving only the gridlines of a completely unfamiliar keyboard. 

“Was that Sanskrit?” said Lydia.

“Yeah,” Stiles said absently. His hand hovered over the keyboard, hesitating, and then he typed in a long series of keys that Derek had no hope of remembering. He found himself staring at Stiles’ hand, anyway; for all that Stiles often gave the impression of moving through life via one spastic flail to the next, here he was distinctly confident, beautifully _precise_.

When Stiles stopped typing, the keyboard disappeared. There was no indication about whether he’d been successful or not. Instead, a new keyboard appeared, and the symbols that showed briefly were unmistakably _Greek_ , what the hell. Stiles typed even more quickly this time.

There was a sound from the ground floor. 

“Scott. Jackson.” Derek nodded to them.

They took up positions on opposite sides of the room.

Derek could smell the Deadeyes coming up the stairwell. The wheezing and scratchy groaning drifted up like temperamental ghosts.

“Come on, Stiles!”

One bloody, half-chewed arm - the bone visible in a few places - reached through a gap in the barricade Isaac had made in front of the door to the emergency stairs. One zombie was fine, but Derek soon heard three more of them crowding around the door, and the barricade began to shudder. 

Allison fired an arrow through the gap. It was one of her exploding specials: there was a brief flash of light, followed by the smell of burning eat. The Deadeyes, unsurprisingly, did not seem at all deterred. 

Derek slung his semi-automatic over his back. His vision took on a faint red tint as he let the wolf bleed through. He heard the rest of the Pack switching to knives, or beginning to shift as well.

A loud beep. “I’m in!” declared Stiles.

The heavy doors began to lift. But the barricade was inching forwards, pushed by the relentless forward movement of the zombies as they sought after live meat. The moment there was a big enough gap, two zombies squeezed through. They looked as if they hadn’t fed in a while, almost skeletal, and they darted forward with a speed that only the really dry ones seemed to have.

Derek roared, partly from instinct and partly from an unexpected rush of anxiety. He’d gotten used to having Allison with the Pack, of being aware of her location and keeping her as far away from the area of combat as possible. But he’d never been as worried as he was now; he was painfully aware of Stiles, so very human Stiles, and the too-few feet of space separating him from the desperate zombies.

The zombies hesitated at the sound of his roar. Interesting. He’d never seen them stop even when the ground was exploding around them and taking pieces out of them. Maybe whatever bond Peter had with them had given the zombies something as well.

Derek took on the fastest one. He punched it with his claws extended, felt his fingers sink into what remained of the ribs. It was like punching through leather. The smell nearly made him gag. He used that hand to keep the zombie from escaping as he sliced through its neck with his other hand.

The body and head continued to thrash for a few seconds after he dropped both to the ground. He saw that Isaac and Boyd had taken down the other one. Jackson had planted himself between Lydia and where the zombies would be coming from. As that had him shielding Allison and Stiles by extension, Derek left him where he was.

“That will never not be disgusting,” said Stiles.

Derek rolled his eyes. “Everybody, get inside the Labs.”

-++ CC ++-

“So,” said Lydia, sidling up to Stiles in a way that had Stiles visibly worried, “Mind telling us how _the hell_ you have access codes to the Labs? And not just any access codes - even _I_ don’t have the codes to lift a total lockdown, and I have a Red-7 security clearance level.”

Derek whistled. Most researchers only had Blue-level clearance. But, as a Head of Department, Lydia would likely need higher clearance for certain kinds of information that might pass her way. 

Stiles looked away. “What can I say? I know my way around the place.”

It was dark, but Derek could still see the flush that rose up on Lydia’s face. Before she could explode at Stiles, however, Derek found himself cutting in with a terse, “Leave it alone.”

She rounded on him instead. “What?”

“I said, leave it alone.” Derek met her gaze. “As the highest ranking military official in the immediate area, I’m the one in charge of ensuring our safety, correct?”

“We’re not military,” said Lydia. “We don’t have to follow your rules.”

Derek could feel himself tensing up. Unexpectedly, Stiles came closer and leaned against the table next to Derek, their legs brushing against each other. He could practically hear Stiles urging, _use your words_. “Fine,” he gritted out. “I’m not saying I’ll give you orders. But would you concede that I am capable of making sound judgments regarding the safety of this group?”

“Well, I suppose we haven’t been eaten by the Infected. Yet.” It was probably the closest Derek would ever get to acquiescence from her.

“Then, I’m asserting that how Stiles got the codes he just used is irrelevant to our current situation.”

-++ CC ++-

“Hey,” said Stiles. “Thanks. You know, for sticking up for me back there.”

Derek shrugged awkwardly. “You’ve intervened often enough on my behalf.”

A few seconds passed. Derek frowned at the dark shapes he could see wandering through the deserted facility. Were more of them heading towards the main building? He could hear Lydia leading the rest of the Pack into the storage vaults behind the containment cells.

Then, Stiles said, so quiet that Derek barely heard it, “My father is the Sheriff.”

“Oh? Of what?” asked Derek absently. 

“No, I mean, my father is _The_ Sheriff.”

Derek paused, waiting for the words to make sense inside his head. At first, he couldn’t figure out what it meant, because yeah, he’d realized that Stiles’ father must have held some kind of rank, and Stiles had told him from the start that his father had worked in Command, why Stiles was acting like this was some big confession-

“Wait.” Derek’s eyes widened. “Hang on. You mean, _The Sheriff_? As in, the First Surge? Terrontiga? The Carte Rouge Crisis?”

“Yup.” Stiles ducked his head.

“I…” didn’t know he had a kid, Derek almost said, but fortunately caught himself. _Of course_ the existence of a family would have been kept a secret. The Sheriff had tangled with innumerable crime organizations and corrupt politicians, he had enemies everywhere. 

And now it made sense that Stiles would know about the Specialized Combat Agents, the Laikos Protocol. Grandfather Hale had organized the Spec-CA branch, bringing together the not inconsiderable number of werewolves drifting through the armed forces and sanitizing what had previously been The Bite. From what Derek had gathered, there had been some suggestion of disbanding the Specs after the death of the Hale family, but the Sheriff had staunchly defended the branch. This had turned out to be an excellent decision, when they discovered that Spec-CAL and several other types were immune to the Infection. 

"I think we've found it," called Boyd from within the vault. 

Derek gave Stiles a meaningful nod, silently thanking him for the show of trust. 

Then he stepped into the vault, and stared. "You have _mountain ash_ in here." 

-++ CC ++-

They picked a block of houses that had a small clearing in the middle. Of course, before they could proceed with the plan, they had to clear the area of zombies. Discreetly.

Which was why Derek was aiming his beamer at the zombie's throat first, the burst of plasma vaporizing its vocal chords, before angling up for the headshot. The zombie hit the ground with a dusty thud.

He became aware of somebody breathing; he spun around, at the same time as a slender figure slipped out of the shadowed doorway behind him. 

It was Allison.

There was nobody else around. Even Derek's ears could barely pick out movement four rooms away, too faint to identify. It was dark enough that Allison's hood shadowed her eyes. The Argent family crest was bright against her suit. Allison never openly wore jewelry when they were on a job, following regulations and the practicalities of their work, so this must be deliberate. Memory flashed; he wondered if she knew when he'd first seen that pendant. In hindsight, that occasion must have been deliberate too, if only to illustrate his ignorance.

It would take him five seconds to draw, power-up, and shoot his beamer. One and a half seconds to draw, take the safety off of, and shoot his gun. Half a second to draw and throw his knife. Allison's crossbow was already loaded and cocked and pointed at him.

Derek lowered his hands. Unclenched his fists. He thought of Stiles, half-unwillingly, and his heart slowed even as a sweet sort of pain twisted through his chest.

Allison looked down the crossbow's sight at him for a long moment, and another. And then the crossbow was hanging loosely by her side, the bolt safely back in its quiver; she could have never been holding it at all, except for the hood still on her head and that damnable pendant. 

"Your trigger finger is a lot steadier than it used to be," he finally said, after cycling through a dozen options in his head. See, Laura, he _did_ know how to be tact.

"It helps when you know what you're hunting," said Allison.

"I imagine it would." He wanted to ask, why? 

Maybe she could read it on his face. "You were thinking about Stiles, weren't you?"

He refused to flush. "How could you tell?"

"There's this... look. Boyd tried to describe it to me but you can't really see it if you're emotionally involved with that person. I know what he means now, though." She cocked her head. "He's human." The way she spoke sounded as if she was saying, instead, you owe your life to him.

"My family has always believed that humans made us accountable, helped us to remember who we are," said Derek, in lieu of responding with, I know.

Allison made a small nod, just the one, which could mean nothing or everything. She turned and walked through the doorway she'd been lurking in. Derek went the opposite way. He was fairly sure the person crashing around in the distant room was Isaac. 

Just before Allison slipped beyond his range of word-clear hearing, he heard her say, "You talked about your family in the present tense," pausing, and then, "I'm glad you came back to us."

-++ CC ++-

Drawing Peter to the block of houses was a simple matter of Derek standing in the clearing and shouting his name. Peter didn't bother hiding his approach. He slinked past the houses and waited several feet from where Derek was standing.

"You called?" he smirked.

Derek threw two of his knives at Peter, flipped his shotgun into his hands and fired two shots in quick succession. Peter caught the knives handily, dropping them to the ground, but the distraction worked and the first bullet tore through his chest. He managed to dodge the second one, but it graze his cheek.

Derek really should have anticipated it, at this point. But, like before, Derek was caught by surprise; the shotgun was ripped from his hands, and he felt his back hit something hard. A wall. He looked down to see Peter's hand pushing against his chest. He felt his ribcage crack, his chest cavity caving in under the pressure. Peter backed off before he crushed Derek's chest completely.

Derek slid down, trying to suck air into his collapsed lungs, swallowed the blood welling in his mouth. 

"Come on, Derek. You're _soft_. You've gotten used to weapons, machines. Have you ever even made a Run? You were too young to be invited, back then. You managed to win an Alpha's mantle, but you don't really want it, do you? I can smell it on you - the reluctance, the self-doubt." Peter chuckled. 

Fingers closed around his throat, squeezing almost lazily. Derek's vision began to go dark around the edges.

"Derek. _Derek._ " At first, Derek thought that the impact to his head had given him actual brain injury, because that sounded like Stiles' voice. And then he realized that it really was Stiles voice, because Derek was still wearing his headset. "Oh man, your uncle is a real piece of work, isn't he? No offense to your family, of course. But, dude. Derek, don't listen to him, okay? He's just trying to mess with your head. Which means he's after something. If he really believes he's stronger than you, he wouldn't bother with the talking. Though he could just be working the evil villain gloating thing."

"Oh, do you have an angel on your shoulder?" sneered Peter. "It's that boy, isn't it? The smart one. He has very sweet eyes. If I take your Pack, do you think he'll accept the bite? I can be very persuasive." Peter's expression insinuated that the bite wasn't the only thing he wanted to persuade Stiles into taking.

Derek was snapping at Peter with his jaws before he could control himself.

"Really, Derek, have you ever heard about keeping your cards close to your chest? Face it," said Peter, sounding almost bored, while Derek felt his lungs filling with fluid. "I'm stronger, and older, and far more savage than you can hope to be."

"No, no, Derek, please," Stiles' voice shouted into his ear. "You're stronger, Derek, you're so much stronger. Peter may be an Alpha, and okay, there's the zombie army, but you have a _Pack_ , Derek, a willing Pack, and they love you. I know you don't believe that, but you have to. You need to hang on."

"It's okay, Stiles," Derek whispered, or tried to. His ruined throat refused to work. At least he knew that Scott would take care of Stiles. Scott would take care of the others. 

And then Peter was roaring, and it sounded like pain instead of the triumph Derek had expected, and there was Scott, nimble and quick, snarling at Peter, and Boyd on the other side. A warm weight rest on Derek, and he knew it was Isaac even before he processed the scent, before some of his pain began draining away. 

Derek struggled to sit up. There was a distant roaring in his ears. He felt Isaac tugging him back, away from Peter. Scott and Boyd sprang back. And then he looked up, because he recognized that sound, and the roaring was in fact-

The Razorbike, Stiles astride, soared overhead, a sleek line of metal against the sky. A few small objects dropped down directly on top of Peter. There was a series of small bangs, and Derek sneezed violently - the powder grenades were full of wolfsbane. 

Peter coughed, tried to run from the deadly cloud and managing three steps before he fell to the ground, clawing at his face and throat. 

The bike had landed neatly on a roof. Derek heard it coming around again. This time, Stiles had a passenger. Fire erupted from Lydia's hand the moment the bike got close enough. Stiles didn't slow down, sped the bike right past Peter and into the line of buildings. The drive-by shot was enough - flames licked over Peter's convulsing form. The smell of burning wolfsbane had Derek's claws sliding out without him meaning to. 

Peter screamed.

The zombies, all over the settlement, screamed with him. 

He hoped the line of wolfsbane and mountain ash around the block, plus whatever spell Stiles and Allison had added to it, held them out long enough for him to finish this.

He gently pushed Isaac off him and stalked over to his uncle's burning body. Peter was, of course, still alive, and he glared balefully at Derek.

He didn't give Peter the chance to speak. He just said, "That was for Laura," and swung his hand, claws extended.

-++ CC ++-

"That's not quite the end of it."

Somehow, Derek was not surprised to see Deaton standing at the edge of the mountain ash and wolfsbane circle. As if he was deliberately demonstrating that he was not a supernatural creature, Deaton stepped over the line.

The rest of the Pack stood at a distance, staring.

The doctor nodded at Peter's body. "Blood of their blood. A kill awards blood to the victor. You knew this could happen."

Derek shrugged. He had. He could already feel them, the Deadeyes that Peter had controlled, the multitudes more waiting to be controlled, if he would just reach out and claim them, forge a twisted version of the link between Alpha and Beta. The zombies nearest to the circle were still screaming, still caught in the last moments of Peter's life. Mindless, lost, eternally hungry, empty of everything except the very basic, superficial parts of being a werewolf. 

As Stiles once said, there was more to being a werewolf than killing things.

"What do you want to do, Derek? All your uncle could think of was revenge, after what had been done to him, after the loss of his family. That which he held now passes on to you. You decide what happens next."

Derek closed his eyes. His family passed through his mind's eye; every face as he'd seen them last. Grandfather and Grandmother Hale, his parents. Laura. Even Peter. They'd died, and it'd been Derek's fault, and Derek was the one who got to live. The only one to remember them, the only one to avenge them. 

None of it was fair. 

And there was Stiles, watching him. Waiting.

"Peace," he finally whispered. "That's what I want. I want the dead to have peace."

_Go with Death. Pass into the skyless plains, until the Hunt calls again._

Outside, all over settlement, all through the forest - a gust of wind, like a soft sigh. 

And then, 

silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lydia makes a reference to the third of Arthur C. Clarke's Three Laws: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."


	13. Epilogue

The fire crackled, sending sparks up into the air. The rest of the camp was silent.

Derek had just finished telling the Pack about the Hunter and the Wolf. Allison cocked her head to one side, and after a thoughtful moment, “I’ve heard that before, but I think I like your family’s version better.”

Stiles was looking between Derek and Scott with a thoughtful expression. “So, according to this legend, the Wolf who’s bonded to a Hunter is, like, a sign that they’re a strong Alpha, right?”

Derek nodded.

Scott stopped gazing at Allison to look at Stiles. Then at Derek. Finally, with genuine curiosity, Scott asked, “Does the legend specifically say that the Hunter is hunting the Wolf? Seems like we’re just assuming.”

Derek blinked. “I… never thought of that before.”

Stiles smiled warmly at Derek. He had a shotgun in his lap, which he was cleaning. “Maybe they’re _both_ hunting after something.”

Derek didn’t smile, but he gazed back, enjoying the way Stiles’ eyes softened.

Boyd cleared his throat. “So, where next?”

“Sky Six,” said Derek.

“Deaton thinks that going to ground zero might weaken the curse overall,” elaborated Isaac.

Lydia sighed. “Why does he keep calling it a curse?”

“No idea.”

“Oh man, I’m so tired of casting the same spell over and over again,” groaned Stiles. 

Naturally, it turned out that putting all the Infected in the galaxy to rest meant visiting every colony and spaceport that had a zombie population. Derek had to be within a certain distance – for the ‘influence’, according to Deaton – and repeat what he had done in Beacon. Deaton, Stiles, Lydia, and Allison, with the help of the Argent Bestiary, had at least worked out a spell to widen the area of effect. Still, it was slow going.

Erica raised an eyebrow. “Do you really want a repeat of the Minedrift? You nearly had a nervous breakdown improvising that new spell.”

“Hey, won’t Centuria start getting suspicious about how, in every place we go to, the zombies suddenly fall over dead?” asked Allison.

Stiles coughed. “My dad may or may not be doing something about that.” He looked pointedly across the fire. “With help from the Whittmore Foundation.”

Everybody turned to look at Jackson. Jackson shrugged. “I’m rich, and the money’s just sitting there.”

“You didn’t think our brand-new spaceship appeared out of nowhere, did you?” said Lydia archly. 

“Did you pay for these tents, too?” asked Scott, looking at the neat row of tents behind them.

“No, that’s Derek,” said Stiles. 

“Oh, cool, thanks,” said Scott, grinning. “Hey, we’ve all finally gone camping!”

Derek refused to look directly at anybody.

“Why Earthworld, though?” asked Boyd. “And why did we have to get here today?”

Derek nodded at the sky. “Look.”

The moon was just rising. 

Derek had considered telling the humans to stay inside the ship until they knew they were safe. But his Pack were no longer cubs, no longer strangers to their wolves. They hadn’t taken suppressants since Cali. He felt a deep, solid confidence that they were all safe.

Well, as safe as werewolves could be.

“Wow,” breathed Scott. 

“What is it?” asked Allison. She was, Derek noted, not wearing her crossbow.

“It’s like, the moon is calling to my wolf,” said Scott. “I’ve never felt anything like this before. I think I’m gonna-“ Scott’s face shifted, eyes flashing gold. 

Derek let his own shift come over him. Let the Pack feel his calm, feel safety in each other. He sprang to his feet. Let a howl escape, listened to it echoing through the night. The Pack followed him.

In the distance, he thought he could hear another set of howls answering back. Some of their kind, after all, had never left their homeworld.

And then, the rumble of powerful engines. Something bright and silver flashed past. Familiar scent. Playful. Derek followed, easily falling into a comfortable stride. The Pack fell in behind him. Far ahead, but steadily falling closer as the Pack sped up, Stiles shouted, “Come on, Pack, let’s go for a Run!”

Somewhere, in the wind, in the shadows, flew a familiar scent, velvet on the nose.

The wolf howled: _we’ve come home_.


End file.
